Eric B. Rakim wrote It is not complete (and never will be). It could also do with better organisation. However ... Having found [[User:Eric B. and Rakim]], and read the way the VfD debate went, I have less sympathy than at first. No, this is normal; no special treatment. If you are an expert, and can also work within the Wikipedia constraints, that's great. Charles

You are definitely in the right place, althought there are other right places such as the Villge Pump. On the surface (I am no programmer, but many who read this list are) your arguement is persuasive, but so is the arguement of your opponents who take the position that the level of detail you are going into is inappropriate for an ecyclopedia. However in many other areas, even more detailed expositions are present and planned for encyclopedia, generally, no town is so small, no King so obscure, and especially, no bird so extinct that it does not deserve an article. We have a policy, "Don't bite the newbies", but, it is not necessarily followed in spirit. In fact, in your case, the excellence of your article and its very sophistication perhaps works against the policy, as the reaction is more to the imposition of that sophistication rather than to the cluelessness of a newbie. The suggestion that the article, and others like it, ought to be moved to Wikibooks is one you might take seriously. I see the debate on VfD (Votes for Deletion) as pretty typical and at this point about evenly divided. Which means your article at worst might end up in Wikibooks. This is often the fate of howto material. The piling on engaged in by Beelzebubs and DavidWBrooks is, of course, inexcusable. I have restored your stub (perhaps it was deleted more due to its stub nature than its content) and suggest you finish working on it, if you have any time and energy with all your other articles up for deletion. This imperious comment: constitutes a serious and sustained newbie mauling. I suppose the idea is that you should edit a few hundred articles about small towns in America before you jump into the serious stuff. I hope this helps. A few serious and valuable contributors have been put off, and, eventually driven away, (usually by butting heads with our amateurish qualities) but I hope you are not one of them and will continue to participate in our "Newbie training and socialization process". Made that quote up, but I hope you get the idea. As far as getting any apologies, considering the damage you have done to the reputation of your tormentors, doubt you can expect any. You might make your user page [[User:Eric B. and Rakim]] a bit more serious. Perhaps a slight part of your difficulty is due to your joking around there. Fred > Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org> > Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 10:43:44 +0000 > To: wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org > Subject: [WikiEN-l] help me > > Dear mailing list readers, > > I don't know if this is the proper place to turn for > help. If it isn't, then please tell me because the matter is > urgent. Wikipedia is a fine resource and contains very much > useful information. Reading Wikipedia is fun, and every day > since I discovered it I've learnt a thing or two by reading > it. But its coverage about programming and computer software > is a little thin I think. Well, I'm quite knowledgeable when > it comes to computer related topics and I love to write. So, > therefore I took it upon me to fix this defiancy. > > Big mistake it seems, some people didn't like that at all. > > Especially not a user by the name RickK, who a few minutes > after I had written an initial version of "XFree86 logfile" > added it to a page "Votes for Deletion" on which he is > currently holding a vote whether that page should be destroyed > or not. Naturally, I protested strongly, because I couldn't > and still cannot understand why he wants to delete that > page. He didn't try to communicate with me and just wrote > "Huh?" and then when I asked him why he thought that that > page should be deleted he answered "It isn't discussing > anything encyclopedic. I THINK it describes a file format, > but I'm not really sure." > >> From that it became obvious to me that he hadn't even read > the article because it should be pretty damn obvious to > anyone that an article titled "XFree86 logfile" is about the > XFree86 logfile. And that I told him that, whereafter he > listed all other six articles I had written: > > glDrawElements, glVertexPointer, glDrawArrays, glEnable, > GL_QUADS, fbdevhw > > And wrote: "I'll ask again. Do we really want articles on > subroutines?" Which is really funny since only the four > first documents subroutines. > > Then quite a few other users also said that they wanted > those articles destroyed. No reasons where given except for > pointless platitudes like "not encyclopedia material" and > "Wikipedia is not (should not be) an API reference". > > I tryid arguing and, no offense intened, but it was totally > wasted time. Those functions are the essential cornerstones > for modern 3d graphics.. Have to realize that some people > just have a very different view of things than me. However, > I refuse to accept that Wikipedia in general would have such > a twisted view of things because then there wouldn't be > 250,000+ articles here. > > Then I wrote the beginning of an article named pcidata, > which is a X module for displaying PCI information. Two > minutes after it was submitted a user named Beelzebubs wrote > "Speedy deletion" on it and a minute later it was destroyed > by DavidWBrooks. It made me quite angry because I had no way > whatsoever to even object. And from looking at their > respective user pages I deducted that none of them is > interested in Linux and therefore (probably) has no idea > what pcidata is. > > It seems like Wikipedia really isn't a very newbie friendly > page. Well, I can't exclude UtherSRG's very friendly > message on my talk page. Is this some kind of hazing or are > regular users treated like this too? Seems like a calculated > move - tease the new guy til they fight back and then accuse > them. Especially this little gem by the same user that also > accused me of being rude: > > > I need help. Because I don't know what I should do. Either > it is so that my work and expertise isn't appreciated or > even accepted by Wikipedia. If so, I will leave peacefully > and not return. If not so, I would expect an apology from > the perpetrators and that my work is not destroyed. > > //Björn (aka. Eric B. and Rakim) > > _________________________________________________________________ > Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l(a)Wikipedia.org > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

It can be a bit disconcerting no doubt to drop into the middle of Wikipedia and finding yourself in the crossfire of one of our perennial debates. As to the personal issues, I can only counsel that you stay friendly, forgive those who you fell have trespassed against you, and recognize that everyone is working for the same goal, but that some minor disagreements are inevitable. As to the article itself, I think [[XFree86 logfile]] is very much a proper topic for an article in Wikipedia. It's a little clumsily written at the moment, but so are many articles on the first revision. What I would recommend to you on these sorts of articles is to include a bit of preamble, setting the context for editors who may not get what it's all about or why it's important. A little motivational material can go a long way. It took me 2 clicks from the Wikipedia homepage to find the article "P-adic number". I daresay not more than 1 in 10 of the people reading this list can say what those are, and not more than 1 in 10,000 in the general population. I did a search for 'P-adic' at Britannica, and they don't even mention it (as far as I can see). So by traditional standards of what an encyclopedia should contain, "P-adic number" is too obscure to be a fit topic for an encyclopedia -- perhaps it's appropriate for a specialist textbook, but not an encyclopedia. Except, we don't believe that. We think, rightly so, that our mathematical coverage is one of our finest achievements. --Jimbo

On Wed, 19 May 2004 10:43:44 +0000, Eric B. Rakim <eric_b_and_rakim(a)hotmail.com> wrote: May I suggest that some of this sort of information might be better located on the Belios OpenFacts Wiki, which is a "free knowledge database about open source software", to quote its front page. You can find it at: http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Main_Page -- "It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia (Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)