Looks like the doll-collector's wiki is saying "bugger Wikipedia" and picking a CC license specifically to maintain incompatibility - they've been put off the idea of Wikipedia *that badly*.
So that's two forks now. Yay!
The thing is, this is one I just happened to know about. How many others have happened that we don't know about? Just how bad is our image out there after the webcomics debacle?
(And I understand a Wired News reporter is sniffing around the webcomics debacle. Fantastic. Perhaps if it becomes a *public* embarrassment something might actually get done about the AFD problem.)
- d.
On 1/16/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Looks like the doll-collector's wiki is saying "bugger Wikipedia" and picking a CC license specifically to maintain incompatibility - they've been put off the idea of Wikipedia *that badly*.
So that's two forks now. Yay!
The thing is, this is one I just happened to know about. How many others have happened that we don't know about? Just how bad is our image out there after the webcomics debacle?
(And I understand a Wired News reporter is sniffing around the webcomics debacle. Fantastic. Perhaps if it becomes a *public* embarrassment something might actually get done about the AFD problem.)
So we've got two options:
1. Fix AFD. 2. Bludgeon Stallman into making the GFDL compatible with CC.
I really don't know which is the more futile undertaking, at this point ;-)
Kirill Lokshin
Well, and the latter point is more of a long-term goal. No bludgeoning should take place until we've sorted out a well-organized list of other things which would be nice to fix a well.
(Also, I don't know what license the doll-collectors picked, but I bet they picked a non-commercial one, which would be incompatible no matter what. I suspect most people gravitate or will gravitate towards nc licenses when they make-their-own-wiki for semi-obvious reasons.)
FF
On 1/16/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Looks like the doll-collector's wiki is saying "bugger Wikipedia" and picking a CC license specifically to maintain incompatibility - they've been put off the idea of Wikipedia *that badly*.
So that's two forks now. Yay!
The thing is, this is one I just happened to know about. How many others have happened that we don't know about? Just how bad is our image out there after the webcomics debacle?
(And I understand a Wired News reporter is sniffing around the webcomics debacle. Fantastic. Perhaps if it becomes a *public* embarrassment something might actually get done about the AFD problem.)
So we've got two options:
- Fix AFD.
- Bludgeon Stallman into making the GFDL compatible with CC.
I really don't know which is the more futile undertaking, at this point ;-)
Kirill Lokshin _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Fastfission wrote:
Well, and the latter point is more of a long-term goal. No bludgeoning should take place until we've sorted out a well-organized list of other things which would be nice to fix a well.
(Also, I don't know what license the doll-collectors picked, but I bet they picked a non-commercial one, which would be incompatible no matter what. I suspect most people gravitate or will gravitate towards nc licenses when they make-their-own-wiki for semi-obvious reasons.)
They realise that they have shot themselves in the foot wrt. getting their content published anywhere? Many people are requesting hard copies of Wikipedia - why not (insert name of some other wiki here)? It might be useful to insert a reference to Eloquence's essay here:
http://intelligentdesigns.net/Licenses/NC
On 1/16/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
- Bludgeon Stallman into making the GFDL compatible with CC.
If that happens, it's most likely to be exclusive to CC-BY-SA, as none of the others are close in spirit to the GFDL. I haven't seen the doll collectors wiki yet, but it probably does _not_ use BY-SA for that reason.
I have just added the following text to my userpage.
==Expertise and deletion==
If you can verify for me that you are a subject expert in a subject considered notable enough to include on Wikiedia, I will, on your say- so, close any deletion debate as "keep" within your field of expertise, and will undelete any articles within your field that you say are notable.
It's a small step, but it's what I can do.
-Phil On Jan 16, 2006, at 12:04 PM, David Gerard wrote:
Looks like the doll-collector's wiki is saying "bugger Wikipedia" and picking a CC license specifically to maintain incompatibility - they've been put off the idea of Wikipedia *that badly*.
So that's two forks now. Yay!
The thing is, this is one I just happened to know about. How many others have happened that we don't know about? Just how bad is our image out there after the webcomics debacle?
(And I understand a Wired News reporter is sniffing around the webcomics debacle. Fantastic. Perhaps if it becomes a *public* embarrassment something might actually get done about the AFD problem.)
- d.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 1/16/06, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I have just added the following text to my userpage.
==Expertise and deletion==
If you can verify for me that you are a subject expert in a subject considered notable enough to include on Wikiedia, I will, on your say- so, close any deletion debate as "keep" within your field of expertise, and will undelete any articles within your field that you say are notable.
It's a small step, but it's what I can do.
Going for that coveted "Admin with the most RFCs filed against him" spot, I see ;-)
It's a nice sentiment, but the approach really won't scale that well (unless a lot more admins go along with it) and will result in lots of upset users. We really need broader institutional changes to the deletion process.
Kirill Lokshin
On Jan 16, 2006, at 2:51 PM, Kirill Lokshin wrote:
Going for that coveted "Admin with the most RFCs filed against him" spot, I see ;-)
Don't I already have that?
It's a nice sentiment, but the approach really won't scale that well (unless a lot more admins go along with it) and will result in lots of upset users. We really need broader institutional changes to the deletion process.
I agree. But it's still the best thing that I can do, right now, to deal with a mounting disaster. Hopefully other admins will go along with it and we can get a kind of movement thing going. I made a template {{expert undeletion}}. Add it to your userpage. :)
-Phil
Snowspinner (Snowspinner@gmail.com) [060117 07:27]:
I agree. But it's still the best thing that I can do, right now, to deal with a mounting disaster. Hopefully other admins will go along with it and we can get a kind of movement thing going. I made a template {{expert undeletion}}. Add it to your userpage. :)
Good one. I've done so. Though you mean {{expert recovery}} ;-)
(Note, of course, the additional text I've put on my page on the subject of deletions.)
- d.
In message 20060116211322.GE24123@thingy.apana.org.au, David Gerard fun-e016Bj8cE8tLBo1qDEOMRrpzq4S04n8Q@public.gmane.org writes
Snowspinner (Snowspinner-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org) [060117 07:27]:
I agree. But it's still the best thing that I can do, right now, to deal with a mounting disaster. Hopefully other admins will go along with it and we can get a kind of movement thing going. I made a template {{expert undeletion}}. Add it to your userpage. :)
Good one. I've done so. Though you mean {{expert recovery}} ;-)
(Note, of course, the additional text I've put on my page on the subject of deletions.)
Wow, that was quick - 9 delete votes on TfD in only 34 minutes!
Kirill Lokshin wrote:
On 1/16/06, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I have just added the following text to my userpage.
==Expertise and deletion==
If you can verify for me that you are a subject expert in a subject considered notable enough to include on Wikiedia, I will, on your say- so, close any deletion debate as "keep" within your field of expertise, and will undelete any articles within your field that you say are notable.
It's a small step, but it's what I can do.
Going for that coveted "Admin with the most RFCs filed against him" spot, I see ;-)
It's a nice sentiment, but the approach really won't scale that well (unless a lot more admins go along with it) and will result in lots of upset users. We really need broader institutional changes to the deletion process.
Kirill Lokshin
I agree, Phil. I really think you should clarify this (probably on a subpage linked to from your statement) or remove it. Even if it's meant in good faith, it's way too easy for some well-meaning (yes, believe it or not, a good number of the AfD crowd *are* acting in good faith) people to take this the wrong way, as I see has already been done on [[WP:ANI]].
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Looks like the doll-collector's wiki is saying "bugger Wikipedia" and picking a CC license specifically to maintain incompatibility - they've been put off the idea of Wikipedia *that badly*.
I haven't really been following this, but are you sure they felt the need to fork because of AfD? I ask, because there's a variety of reasons that people feel the need to start their own specialist-subject wiki. Someone recently started "CryptoDox" (http://www.cryptodox.com/), a encyclopedia of cryptography, using MediaWiki, licensed under cc by-nc-sa. Exactly the same goals, it seems, as the Wikipedia Cryptography Project.
I asked him why he didn't want to do it on Wikipedia. He replied, rather cryptically (pun not intended):
"You are right in saying "Why not Wikipedia?". But this does not mean that others are not free to try out endeavours of their own. Wikipedia is undoubtedly an outstanding project which is growing at a tremendous pace and will surely continue to do so."
"That is exactly how I would like to see CryptoDox become one day....but with just one particular domain in mind....cryptography. Can't this be done in Wikipedia? Yes! It can be done there. No doubts. But I want to see how a site dedicated to a particular domain does over time."
A little perplexing, but he doesn't seem to be an embittered AfD veteran.
-- Matt
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com
___________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger - NEW crystal clear PC to PC calling worldwide with voicemail http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Matt R (matt_crypto@yahoo.co.uk) [060117 08:27]:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Looks like the doll-collector's wiki is saying "bugger Wikipedia" and picking a CC license specifically to maintain incompatibility - they've been put off the idea of Wikipedia *that badly*.
I haven't really been following this, but are you sure they felt the need to fork because of AfD?
Go read the threads. Yes, explicitly because of the webcomics debacle and the way experts are actually treated on AFD/DRV, which is to say really very badly. They didn't even want to risk that.
I'm shouting about it because (a) it's a completely unnecessary fork and quite definitely happened for this reason and (b) this just happens to be one we *know about*.
- d.
David Gerard (fun@thingy.apana.org.au) [060117 08:32]:
Matt R (matt_crypto@yahoo.co.uk) [060117 08:27]:
--- David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Looks like the doll-collector's wiki is saying "bugger Wikipedia" and picking a CC license specifically to maintain incompatibility - they've been put off the idea of Wikipedia *that badly*.
I haven't really been following this, but are you sure they felt the need to fork because of AfD?
Go read the threads. Yes, explicitly because of the webcomics debacle and the way experts are actually treated on AFD/DRV, which is to say really very badly. They didn't even want to risk that. I'm shouting about it because (a) it's a completely unnecessary fork and quite definitely happened for this reason and (b) this just happens to be one we *know about*.
I should add: it's distinctly odd and disquieting to see so many people reacting to this with apparent denial - claiming it couldn't really be because Wikipedia has places that threat people badly enough that outsiders don't want to risk it any more, it must be some other barely-plausible reason. (I remember geni trying to make this out to be the case with the Comixpedia fork even when it was explicitly because AFD were being complete arses.) This is actually a problem and I submit that it's a serious one. Is two enough? Will it be a problem with three or four? It's not the fact of the forks, it's the reason for them.
- d.
On 1/16/06, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
I should add: it's distinctly odd and disquieting to see so many people reacting to this with apparent denial - claiming it couldn't really be because Wikipedia has places that threat people badly enough that outsiders don't want to risk it any more, it must be some other barely-plausible reason. (I remember geni trying to make this out to be the case with the Comixpedia fork even when it was explicitly because AFD were being complete arses.) This is actually a problem and I submit that it's a serious one. Is two enough? Will it be a problem with three or four? It's not the fact of the forks, it's the reason for them.
I'll point out that there are certain portions of the Wikipedia population which LIKE the culture of AFD. These portions are quite vehemently against any major reform; and so long as AFD continues to operate (and it will, barring another Uncle Ed incident) they have no incentive to negotiate over the issue.
Kirill Lokshin
Kirill Lokshin (kirill.lokshin@gmail.com) [060117 08:56]:
I'll point out that there are certain portions of the Wikipedia population which LIKE the culture of AFD. These portions are quite vehemently against any major reform; and so long as AFD continues to operate (and it will, barring another Uncle Ed incident) they have no incentive to negotiate over the issue.
And the regular assumption that AFD as it is is the only way a deletion process could ever be. "AFD is fucked." "What, you want to keep everything? RADICAL INCLSUIONIST!!1!" Apparently regulars such as Geogre consider me a "radical inclusionist." WTF.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
Kirill Lokshin (kirill.lokshin@gmail.com) [060117 08:56]:
I'll point out that there are certain portions of the Wikipedia population which LIKE the culture of AFD. These portions are quite vehemently against any major reform; and so long as AFD continues to operate (and it will, barring another Uncle Ed incident) they have no incentive to negotiate over the issue.
And the regular assumption that AFD as it is is the only way a deletion process could ever be. "AFD is fucked." "What, you want to keep everything? RADICAL INCLSUIONIST!!1!" Apparently regulars such as Geogre consider me a "radical inclusionist." WTF.
- d.
Then what sort of process would you propose? Bear in mind that proposals to merely *streamline* the deletion process (i.e. [[Wikipedia:Preliminary Deletion]]) were strongly opposed by both hard-line inclusionists and deletionists. I can't even imagine the sort of scandal over real major reform. And besides, what can be done? Give more weight to "experts"? (I'm not anti-expert or anything; I just can't see how this sort of thing can be accomplished without opening ourselves up to POV pushers from the realm of academia - it's a slippery slope, IMO - or getting the community's co-operation on this. Not to mention how we might end up getting flooded with false claims of expertise on a particular piece of subject matter.)
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
On 1/16/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
I should add: it's distinctly odd and disquieting to see so many people reacting to this with apparent denial - claiming it couldn't really be because Wikipedia has places that threat people badly enough that outsiders don't want to risk it any more, it must be some other barely-plausible reason. (I remember geni trying to make this out to be the case with the Comixpedia fork even when it was explicitly because AFD were being complete arses.) This is actually a problem and I submit that it's a serious one. Is two enough? Will it be a problem with three or four? It's not the fact of the forks, it's the reason for them.
I'll point out that there are certain portions of the Wikipedia population which LIKE the culture of AFD. These portions are quite vehemently against any major reform; and so long as AFD continues to operate (and it will, barring another Uncle Ed incident) they have no incentive to negotiate over the issue.
Kirill Lokshin
It's not an issue of likeing it. It's more an issue of all the alturnatives being worse. With the exception of PWD they all move power away from the community.
People complain there isn't enough disscussion on AFD. They could go on there and discuss things. Stop voteing and start commenting. I did. People do respond. Just think if you had as few as half a dozen people who never voted but commented on a regular basis you could change the whole place.
People complain the attitude is bad. Well get a group together and start spreading good atitude.
-- geni
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
It's not an issue of likeing it. It's more an issue of all the alturnatives being worse. With the exception of PWD they all move power away from the community.
So do you see the existence of SfD as a bad thing, then?
Kirill Lokshin
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
It's not an issue of likeing it. It's more an issue of all the alturnatives being worse. With the exception of PWD they all move power away from the community.
So do you see the existence of SfD as a bad thing, then?
Kirill Lokshin
Err why should I?
-- geni
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
It's not an issue of likeing it. It's more an issue of all the alturnatives being worse. With the exception of PWD they all move power away from the community.
So do you see the existence of SfD as a bad thing, then?
Kirill Lokshin
Err why should I?
See SPUI (I believe - it may have been somebody else) complaining that the SfD regulars were doing funny things with stub redirects.
Or, somewhat more generally, would you be opposed to the creation of "Webcomics for deletion", "Computer and video games for deletion", "U. S. streets for deletion", etc.?
Kirill Lokshin
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
See SPUI (I believe - it may have been somebody else) complaining that the SfD regulars were doing funny things with stub redirects.
I think the complaint was that they were not leaveing them in place.
Or, somewhat more generally, would you be opposed to the creation of "Webcomics for deletion", "Computer and video games for deletion", "U. S. streets for deletion", etc.?
Kirill Lokshin
SFD is a slight odity in that it handles only meta content and exists because the stuff it deals with isn't properly covered by any other form of deletion.
Webcomics for deletion is clearly two narrow a band for deletion. It would require NP patrolers to learn stupidly high numbers of AFD tags. subdivision into wider bands would probably be desirable if a way can be found to do it without requireing to great an expenditure of rescources.~~~~
-- geni
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Webcomics for deletion is clearly two narrow a band for deletion. It would require NP patrolers to learn stupidly high numbers of AFD tags. subdivision into wider bands would probably be desirable if a way can be found to do it without requireing to great an expenditure of rescources.~~~~
Actually, my idea was that step 3 of the AFD nom process would be changed, initially placing noms in a holding cell-type area. Interested parties (possibly a dedicated deletion-sorting project) would then move the noms to a project deletion page, or to the main AFD page if no suitable project existed.
Kirill Lokshin
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: Actually, my idea was that step 3 of the AFD nom process would be changed, initially placing noms in a holding cell-type area. Interested parties (possibly a dedicated deletion-sorting project) would then move the noms to a project deletion page, or to the main AFD page if no suitable project existed.
Kirill Lokshin
Uses up way too many rescoures and runs into the problem of POV projects (they have existed and will exist again). Follow the link for my aproach:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/test
Of course the catigories will need tuneing (at the moment they are just the ones from the main page).
-- geni
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: Actually, my idea was that step 3 of the AFD nom process would be changed, initially placing noms in a holding cell-type area. Interested parties (possibly a dedicated deletion-sorting project) would then move the noms to a project deletion page, or to the main AFD page if no suitable project existed.
Kirill Lokshin
Uses up way too many rescoures and runs into the problem of POV projects (they have existed and will exist again). Follow the link for my aproach:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/test
Of course the catigories will need tuneing (at the moment they are just the ones from the main page).
Interesting. I would increase the number of categories significantly; simply splitting AFD into 8 chunks does little, in my view, to solve its main structural problem: that a centralized listing makes pasting "* NN, D. ~~~~" into every subpage entirely too easy.
Kirill Lokshin
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: Actually, my idea was that step 3 of the AFD nom process would be changed, initially placing noms in a holding cell-type area. Interested parties (possibly a dedicated deletion-sorting project) would then move the noms to a project deletion page, or to the main AFD page if no suitable project existed.
Kirill Lokshin
Uses up way too many rescoures and runs into the problem of POV projects (they have existed and will exist again). Follow the link for my aproach:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/test
Of course the catigories will need tuneing (at the moment they are just the ones from the main page).
Interesting. I would increase the number of categories significantly; simply splitting AFD into 8 chunks does little, in my view, to solve its main structural problem: that a centralized listing makes pasting "* NN, D. ~~~~" into every subpage entirely too easy.
Kirill Lokshin
Increaseing splitting makes life mach harder for NP patrol people and makes it harder for people to find AFDs. No one copies and pastes NN,D onto every subpage. WP:RFC shows that spliting into a small number catigories increases participation.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: Actually, my idea was that step 3 of the AFD nom process would be changed, initially placing noms in a holding cell-type area. Interested parties (possibly a dedicated deletion-sorting project) would then move the noms to a project deletion page, or to the main AFD page if no suitable project existed.
Kirill Lokshin
Uses up way too many rescoures and runs into the problem of POV projects (they have existed and will exist again). Follow the link for my aproach:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/test
Of course the catigories will need tuneing (at the moment they are just the ones from the main page).
-- geni
I like this. Along with Preliminary Deletion, the categorisation of deletions has always been one of my favoured proposals for reforming the deletion process.
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
geni wrote:
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: Actually, my idea was that step 3 of the AFD nom process would be changed, initially placing noms in a holding cell-type area. Interested parties (possibly a dedicated deletion-sorting project) would then move the noms to a project deletion page, or to the main AFD page if no suitable project existed.
Kirill Lokshin
Uses up way too many rescoures and runs into the problem of POV projects (they have existed and will exist again). Follow the link for my aproach:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/test
Of course the catigories will need tuneing (at the moment they are just the ones from the main page).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting
On 1/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote:
On 1/17/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/16/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: Actually, my idea was that step 3 of the AFD nom process would be changed, initially placing noms in a holding cell-type area. Interested parties (possibly a dedicated deletion-sorting project) would then move the noms to a project deletion page, or to the main AFD page if no suitable project existed.
Kirill Lokshin
Uses up way too many rescoures and runs into the problem of POV projects (they have existed and will exist again). Follow the link for my aproach:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/test
Of course the catigories will need tuneing (at the moment they are just the ones from the main page).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting
Nice! Of course, it doesn't appear to have any plans to remove sorted items from the main AFD list - which is pretty much what I'm getting at.
Kirill Lokshin
On 1/17/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting
Far to many catigories and would eat far too many rescources.
-- geni
I'm afraid I don't see the "deeply deeply flawed" nature of WP:MUSIC. In my experience, it's an incredibly useful tool. It's also made a lot of AfD discussions less contentious for WP newbies. Instead of what seems like dozens of people passing judgement on your band, it's people pointing to a set of guidelines which doesn't allow for your band's inclusion.
The guidelines may be pop and Western oriented, but that's largely a response to the specific problems which WP has had, namely with garage bands from Western countries. I don't see this as a indication of the flawed nature of these guidelines. As geni noted, when we are overrun with vanity articles from music students in opera school promoting themselves, we can add more specific sub-guidelines regarding opera. Is there really a problem with regards to non-pop or non-Western music? The guidelines are vague and inclusive enough that anything remotely notable can make it through provided one is willing enough to provide a solid source or two, which should be required anyway under WP:Cite your sources.
As far as this new template goes, I find it appalling that people find it appropriate to openly declare their contempt for consensus in such a manner, and I find it no better than that speedy deleted template which declared an intention to violate image copyrights. In my experience, a decent source or two is all that's needed to save the shakiest article. I really don't see evidence of widespread loss of articles on notable topics, just an occasional anomaly or two like Elf Only Inn that gets deleted. I'm sorry if you find afd or vfu onerous and offensive, but let's let the system work before you storm the Bastille, eh? When the Cyrus Farivar article was on Afd, Snowspinner openly declared his intention to override consensus and that he'd insure the article was kept regardless. It turned out there was no consensus for delete, so Snowspinner's unilateral declaration was completely unnecessary, but now what was a normal run of the mill deletion vote looks like an illegitimate result.
David Gerard wrote:
I should add: it's distinctly odd and disquieting to see so many people reacting to this with apparent denial - claiming it couldn't really be because Wikipedia has places that threat people badly enough that outsiders don't want to risk it any more, it must be some other barely-plausible reason. (I remember geni trying to make this out to be the case with the Comixpedia fork even when it was explicitly because AFD were being complete arses.) This is actually a problem and I submit that it's a serious one. Is two enough? Will it be a problem with three or four? It's not the fact of the forks, it's the reason for them.
I submit that the AfD situation with respect to forks is a symptom of our lack of consensus on WP's desired scope and depth. For instance, I and others can (and have) written articles on plants and animals for which the Google hits are down in the teens, and for which there may be only a handful of mentions in print. Arguably, these species are only of interest to specialists, and not appropriate for a "general encyclopedia", but rarely do they get listed on AfD as non-notable. Conversely, a doll manufacturer with a half-million customers could easily get listed. Is the obscure species really more "notable" then?
As long as the definition of notability gets left in the hands of AfD habitues, that's what outsiders are going to use to determine whether their interest falls inside or outside WP's scope. I don't think all forks are avoidable, for instance if specialists want to build a wiki that is used for research and thus mixes up published and original material. But right now outsiders have no page they can look at that will clearly tell them whether their planned level of depth is considered appropriate for WP, and so AfD ends up being a sort of crude measuring tool.
Stan
On 1/16/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Looks like the doll-collector's wiki is saying "bugger Wikipedia" and picking a CC license specifically to maintain incompatibility - they've been put off the idea of Wikipedia *that badly*.
So that's two forks now. Yay!
uh huh. Spam will hit them in about 3 weeks if my experence is anything to go by.
(And I understand a Wired News reporter is sniffing around the webcomics debacle. Fantastic. Perhaps if it becomes a *public* embarrassment something might actually get done about the AFD problem.)
- d.
Probably. Something ill thought out that is likely to make the problem worse next time but probably. -- geni