Agree wholeheartedly, the page is a stupid waste of time and troll bait. Noone in their right mind gets involved in it unless they have to cause the deletionists is trying to delete a page you have created / authored. The freaky things you see there are just disgusting.
1. There is no reason to delete any of the pages there at all. Copyvios already has a special page. And there is also already candidates for speedy deletion and simple vandalism that is deleted on sight.
2. Everyone using that page to delete articles is sabotaging Wikipedia and should be blocked.
3. The page itself should be deleted since it just can't be fixed.
4. Articles about "non-notable" stuff does not hurt Wikipedia. Since noone cares about the stuff, noone will link to it and noone will search for it and NOONE will ever see it!
5. Except for people that actually GO AND LOOK for useless articles. But if you do, it's your own fault that you find them. Casual surfers and non-wikipedians wont find them.
6. And cause those articles are never read by anyone it doesn't hurt to remove them from Wikipedia. But that's not why vfd is sabotaging Wikipedia. It is because 50-80% of the articles listed there should not and will not be deleted. The authors of those articles are forced to defend their work to people that just haven't got a clue and never will. Then they have to engage in more pointless arguing with the deletionists just to prevent them from destroying Wikipedia!
7. The Wikipedia concept is that anyone can edit a page and that only those who edits a page gets to determine what information goes into a page. Its like "do it yourself cause you can't tell anyone else what to do cause there is no way to force them to do it." Now that concept doesn't work with vfd cause someone can say "uuuh.. delete unless it is improved in a week.". That person basically forces those who care about the article to write what they know about it or it will be killed. It is not fair at all.
8. As an example:
NASA Project Gemini Familiarization Manual -- Add to this discussion
The flight manual for the Gemini spacecraft - excellent Wikisource material. Transwiki and delete --Rlandmann 00:33, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
* Transwiki and delete. Geogre 00:54, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC) * Transwiki and delete. GeneralPatton 00:55, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC) * Have moved article to Wikisource. Please Delete DarylC 2 Sep 2004
Which of these comments is a total waste of everyones time? Rlandmann's is because despite the fact that he had an excellent idea he was to damn lazy to carry it out himself as he easily could. Geogre and GeneralPatton just seem to show off their excellent talents in agreeing. Finally, DarylC, the primary author of the page actually does some work and moves the article. Very good DarylC.
The problem with this is that atleast thousand people have been forced to read this meaningless junk because Rlandmann didn't place the suggestion to transwiki on the article's talk page which would have been the right thing to do.
9. Example2: SimonP decided to list Puchland. Puchland seem to be a minor webforum that nobody cares about. Because of point 4 above, this listing too, is completele useless. And as in point 8 the proper way would have been to propose deletion on that articles talk page. Noone but those concerned should be the ones taking the decision.
10. The only way to fix vfd would be to allow people to cast the identical vote on range of articles listed there. Then you would be able to vote "keep doesn't hurt wikipedia" (or whatever) on each and every article. However, the deletionists would never allow such an option because it only takes a handful of people to vote in that way for the whole system to break down.
IMHO, IANAL, etc, w/e
_________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Are you posting on this mailing list for no reason other than to troll? Looking through my inbox, I see nothing constructive coming from you; only accusations that RickK is involved in some plot to harass users and this lunatic, invective-filled rant in which you exhort your belief that any article that falls short of putting Wikipedia in legal danger or consists of a halfway-coherent sentence belongs on Wikipedia, and that anyone who disagrees with you should be banned.
VfD needs work; it's by no means a perfect system. However, removing it is much, much worse. If articles about some guy's pet dog and bands that have existed for two weeks and haven't even written a song are allowed to remain, Wikipedia will only become a dumping ground from random crap from the Internet, something that its critics have been predicting for years. It will turn into another Gaia Forums or Neopets. Both of these sites are avoided like the plague by sensible and mature Internet users because they have next to no control or moderation. A lack of control encourages people to post inane drivel. What frightens me is that if ideas such as getting rid of Vfd and automatically suspecting every action taken by an administrator are instituted, Wikipedia will be going down the same path. You are proposing to disenfranchise the Wikipedia community by removing its control over what remains in the project, which is completely anti-Wiki.
--Slowking Man ----- Original Message ----- From: Eric B. and Rakimmailto:eric_b_and_rakim@hotmail.com To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.orgmailto:wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 6:56 PM Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] VfD is broken
Agree wholeheartedly, the page is a stupid waste of time and troll bait. Noone in their right mind gets involved in it unless they have to cause the deletionists is trying to delete a page you have created / authored. The freaky things you see there are just disgusting.
1. There is no reason to delete any of the pages there at all. Copyvios already has a special page. And there is also already candidates for speedy deletion and simple vandalism that is deleted on sight.
2. Everyone using that page to delete articles is sabotaging Wikipedia and should be blocked.
3. The page itself should be deleted since it just can't be fixed.
4. Articles about "non-notable" stuff does not hurt Wikipedia. Since noone cares about the stuff, noone will link to it and noone will search for it and NOONE will ever see it!
5. Except for people that actually GO AND LOOK for useless articles. But if you do, it's your own fault that you find them. Casual surfers and non-wikipedians wont find them.
6. And cause those articles are never read by anyone it doesn't hurt to remove them from Wikipedia. But that's not why vfd is sabotaging Wikipedia. It is because 50-80% of the articles listed there should not and will not be deleted. The authors of those articles are forced to defend their work to people that just haven't got a clue and never will. Then they have to engage in more pointless arguing with the deletionists just to prevent them from destroying Wikipedia!
7. The Wikipedia concept is that anyone can edit a page and that only those who edits a page gets to determine what information goes into a page. Its like "do it yourself cause you can't tell anyone else what to do cause there is no way to force them to do it." Now that concept doesn't work with vfd cause someone can say "uuuh.. delete unless it is improved in a week.". That person basically forces those who care about the article to write what they know about it or it will be killed. It is not fair at all.
8. As an example:
NASA Project Gemini Familiarization Manual -- Add to this discussion
The flight manual for the Gemini spacecraft - excellent Wikisource material. Transwiki and delete --Rlandmann 00:33, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
* Transwiki and delete. Geogre 00:54, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC) * Transwiki and delete. GeneralPatton 00:55, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC) * Have moved article to Wikisource. Please Delete DarylC 2 Sep 2004
Which of these comments is a total waste of everyones time? Rlandmann's is because despite the fact that he had an excellent idea he was to damn lazy to carry it out himself as he easily could. Geogre and GeneralPatton just seem to show off their excellent talents in agreeing. Finally, DarylC, the primary author of the page actually does some work and moves the article. Very good DarylC.
The problem with this is that atleast thousand people have been forced to read this meaningless junk because Rlandmann didn't place the suggestion to transwiki on the article's talk page which would have been the right thing to do.
9. Example2: SimonP decided to list Puchland. Puchland seem to be a minor webforum that nobody cares about. Because of point 4 above, this listing too, is completele useless. And as in point 8 the proper way would have been to propose deletion on that articles talk page. Noone but those concerned should be the ones taking the decision.
10. The only way to fix vfd would be to allow people to cast the identical vote on range of articles listed there. Then you would be able to vote "keep doesn't hurt wikipedia" (or whatever) on each and every article. However, the deletionists would never allow such an option because it only takes a handful of people to vote in that way for the whole system to break down.
IMHO, IANAL, etc, w/e
Eric B. and Rakim wrote:
- There is no reason to delete any of the pages there at all.
Copyvios already has a special page. And there is also already candidates for speedy deletion and simple vandalism that is deleted on sight.
Please provide examples. Speedy deletions are for contributions that don't make sense. VfD is for those that do but aren't encyclopedic.
- Everyone using that page to delete articles is sabotaging Wikipedia
and should be blocked.
I will not argue with trolls, I will not argue with trolls, I will not argue with trolls...
- The page itself should be deleted since it just can't be fixed.
See above.
- Articles about "non-notable" stuff does not hurt Wikipedia. Since
noone cares about the stuff, noone will link to it and noone will search for it and NOONE will ever see it!
A keyword search can easily bring up non-notable articles. When somebody sees an entry resembling a blog posting, what will they think of Wikipedia?
- Except for people that actually GO AND LOOK for useless articles.
But if you do, it's your own fault that you find them. Casual surfers and non-wikipedians wont find them.
See above.
- And cause those articles are never read by anyone it doesn't hurt
to remove them from Wikipedia. But that's not why vfd is sabotaging Wikipedia. It is because 50-80% of the articles listed there should not and will not be deleted. The authors of those articles are forced to defend their work to people that just haven't got a clue and never will. Then they have to engage in more pointless arguing with the deletionists just to prevent them from destroying Wikipedia!
Please provide examples. A good deal of the time, the authors don't defend their works. Contrary to common belief, very few people who visit VfD are rabid deletionists who will vote delete for an arbitrary reason. Most of us actually take the time to Google the article's subject, etc. The author doesn't have to do much. I've VfDed a lot of articles in my time, and a lot of them were kept, not thanks to the author's intervention, but the research of other kind-hearted Wikipedians.
- The Wikipedia concept is that anyone can edit a page and that only
those who edits a page gets to determine what information goes into a page. Its like "do it yourself cause you can't tell anyone else what to do cause there is no way to force them to do it." Now that concept doesn't work with vfd cause someone can say "uuuh.. delete unless it is improved in a week.". That person basically forces those who care about the article to write what they know about it or it will be killed. It is not fair at all.
Well, honestly, tell me, what is there to write about someone's smelly socks? If it's a notable article, it will be improved anyway. Are you suggesting we tolerate garbage just because the garbage's topic is something notable? Honestly, if I had to pick between deleting a (hypothetical) article on Ronald Reagan which is full of unrelated nonsense about doing drugs or keeping it in the hopes somebody would improve it, I'd do the former without skipping a beat. Having an article only gives the impression to readers that we tolerate junk. I'd rather receive complaints from readers that we don't have an article on Ronald Reagan than complaints that our article of Ronald Reagan is useless, which in turn will lead to questioning the credibility of other innocent articles.
- As an example:
NASA Project Gemini Familiarization Manual -- Add to this discussion
The flight manual for the Gemini spacecraft - excellent Wikisource material. Transwiki and delete --Rlandmann 00:33, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Transwiki and delete. Geogre 00:54, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Transwiki and delete. GeneralPatton 00:55, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Have moved article to Wikisource. Please Delete DarylC 2 Sep 2004
Which of these comments is a total waste of everyones time? Rlandmann's is because despite the fact that he had an excellent idea he was to damn lazy to carry it out himself as he easily could. Geogre and GeneralPatton just seem to show off their excellent talents in agreeing. Finally, DarylC, the primary author of the page actually does some work and moves the article. Very good DarylC.
The problem with this is that atleast thousand people have been forced to read this meaningless junk because Rlandmann didn't place the suggestion to transwiki on the article's talk page which would have been the right thing to do.
You are missing the whole point of VfD. The point is to ask a wide audience - that "thousand people" - "Is this article worth keeping, or do we move it elsewhere/delete it?". The point of VfD is consensus. Placing the request on the Talk leads to a very very limited audience - how many Wikipedians read Talk pages on a regular basis? And unitarily moving it is even worse.
- Example2: SimonP decided to list Puchland. Puchland seem to be a
minor webforum that nobody cares about. Because of point 4 above, this listing too, is completele useless. And as in point 8 the proper way would have been to propose deletion on that articles talk page. Noone but those concerned should be the ones taking the decision.
See above.
- The only way to fix vfd would be to allow people to cast the
identical vote on range of articles listed there. Then you would be able to vote "keep doesn't hurt wikipedia" (or whatever) on each and every article. However, the deletionists would never allow such an option because it only takes a handful of people to vote in that way for the whole system to break down.
As an unabashed "deletionist", I'd oppose that because that doesn't make sense.
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
John Lee wrote:
- Articles about "non-notable" stuff does not hurt Wikipedia. Since
noone cares about the stuff, noone will link to it and noone will search for it and NOONE will ever see it!
A keyword search can easily bring up non-notable articles. When somebody sees an entry resembling a blog posting, what will they think of Wikipedia?
They will think "Whee! There's stuff to improve!" and become a contributor.
If it's a notable article, it will be improved anyway.
An article goes through VfD for how long? 5 days? 7 days? Hardly enough to give people time to improve a bad article on an obscure topic.
Honestly, if I had to pick between deleting a (hypothetical) article on Ronald Reagan which is full of unrelated nonsense about doing drugs or keeping it in the hopes somebody would improve it, I'd do the former without skipping a beat.
Of course, that is an extreme example. How about Anthere's recent example:
The '''medlar''' is a [[fruit]].
Admittedly, this article is: * short * incomplete
However, it is also: * factually accurate * NPOV * actually something I didn't know!
Hence, it is useful.
Having an article only gives the impression to readers that we tolerate junk.
Which is good. If we give the impression to readers that we tolerate only full-grown complete articles, we will detract contributors who are perhaps not quite as good a writer as they would like to be.
I'd rather receive complaints from readers that we don't have an article on Ronald Reagan than complaints that our article of Ronald Reagan is useless, which in turn will lead to questioning the credibility of other innocent articles.
The missing of an article on Ronald Reagan would similarly lead to questioning the completeness of other innocent articles.
Now, please don't get me wrong; I am not a complete inclusionist, either. For example, I too don't think it would make sense to have a separate article on every single school anyone ever went to. However, I have been wanting to contribute to advanced topics in Computation Theory and Complexity Theory, but have been a bit hesitant to do so because some of the things I want to write about would start out as simple stubs and risk being deleted.
Timwi
Having an article only gives the impression to readers that we tolerate
junk.
Which is good. If we give the impression to readers that we tolerate only full-grown complete articles, we will detract contributors who are perhaps not quite as good a writer as they would like to be.
Exactly. This is why Nupedia failed.
Timwi wrote:
John Lee wrote:
- Articles about "non-notable" stuff does not hurt Wikipedia. Since
noone cares about the stuff, noone will link to it and noone will search for it and NOONE will ever see it!
A keyword search can easily bring up non-notable articles. When somebody sees an entry resembling a blog posting, what will they think of Wikipedia?
They will think "Whee! There's stuff to improve!" and become a contributor.
That happens like what - how often? Most people I know would just close the window and Google the topic elsewhere. They might think, "An encyclopedia about somebody's breakfast? Ok...."
If it's a notable article, it will be improved anyway.
An article goes through VfD for how long? 5 days? 7 days? Hardly enough to give people time to improve a bad article on an obscure topic.
Those interested will know that it is on VfD. If it is arcane, there's a chance no current Wikipedian knows about the subject yet, in which case, I say it's better safe than sorry to delete. A better article can be recreated later.
Honestly, if I had to pick between deleting a (hypothetical) article on Ronald Reagan which is full of unrelated nonsense about doing drugs or keeping it in the hopes somebody would improve it, I'd do the former without skipping a beat.
Of course, that is an extreme example. How about Anthere's recent example:
The '''medlar''' is a [[fruit]].Admittedly, this article is:
- short
- incomplete
However, it is also:
- factually accurate
- NPOV
- actually something I didn't know!
Hence, it is useful.
I would vote keep and put on cleanup. It is not rubbish.
Having an article only gives the impression to readers that we tolerate junk.
Which is good. If we give the impression to readers that we tolerate only full-grown complete articles, we will detract contributors who are perhaps not quite as good a writer as they would like to be.
I think you misunderstood. I was trying to say that at the very least, we should prove we have some credibility by at the very least having articles on notable/verifiable topics only. If there's good content but bad formatting, it's for cleanup. If it's just non-notable crap, it shouldn't be on Wikipedia.
I'd rather receive complaints from readers that we don't have an article on Ronald Reagan than complaints that our article of Ronald Reagan is useless, which in turn will lead to questioning the credibility of other innocent articles.
The missing of an article on Ronald Reagan would similarly lead to questioning the completeness of other innocent articles.
Better to have no information instead of misleading information.
Now, please don't get me wrong; I am not a complete inclusionist, either. For example, I too don't think it would make sense to have a separate article on every single school anyone ever went to. However, I have been wanting to contribute to advanced topics in Computation Theory and Complexity Theory, but have been a bit hesitant to do so because some of the things I want to write about would start out as simple stubs and risk being deleted.
I'd encourage you to do so. I started [[resort]], which is still a stub after close to a year, and it was VfDed in less than a few hours, yet survived. Most Wikipedians aren't extreme deletionists. I don't vote to delete stubs or substubs, just patent nonsense.
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
John Lee wrote:
Eric B. and Rakim wrote:
- There is no reason to delete any of the pages there at all.
Copyvios already has a special page. And there is also already candidates for speedy deletion and simple vandalism that is deleted on sight.
Please provide examples. Speedy deletions are for contributions that don't make sense. VfD is for those that do but aren't encyclopedic.
And "encyclopedic" is a subjective judgement where the deletionist support a very narrow interpretation.
- Articles about "non-notable" stuff does not hurt Wikipedia. Since
noone cares about the stuff, noone will link to it and noone will search for it and NOONE will ever see it!
A keyword search can easily bring up non-notable articles. When somebody sees an entry resembling a blog posting, what will they think of Wikipedia?
A person looking for "non-notable" articles can certainly find them, but casual visitors would not be the ones making such searches. The "What will they think ...?" question is nothing but a scare tactic. It is speculative and based on no evidence whatsoever.
- The Wikipedia concept is that anyone can edit a page and that only
those who edits a page gets to determine what information goes into a page. Its like "do it yourself cause you can't tell anyone else what to do cause there is no way to force them to do it." Now that concept doesn't work with vfd cause someone can say "uuuh.. delete unless it is improved in a week.". That person basically forces those who care about the article to write what they know about it or it will be killed. It is not fair at all.
Well, honestly, tell me, what is there to write about someone's smelly socks?
So what's the link to the smelly sock article, or is this just another straw man?
If it's a notable article, it will be improved anyway. Are you suggesting we tolerate garbage just because the garbage's topic is something notable?
Nobody has suggested tolerating garbage. You're just making that up so you can have something to argue against.
Honestly, if I had to pick between deleting a (hypothetical) article on Ronald Reagan which is full of unrelated nonsense about doing drugs or keeping it in the hopes somebody would improve it, I'd do the former without skipping a beat. Having an article only gives the impression to readers that we tolerate junk. I'd rather receive complaints from readers that we don't have an article on Ronald Reagan than complaints that our article of Ronald Reagan is useless, which in turn will lead to questioning the credibility of other innocent articles.
Arguing about hypothetical articles is arguing about articles that don't exist. You can go ahead and delete all the non-existing articles that you want. If the Ronald Reagan article contained all your speculative nonsense it would be fixed, not deleted. Why can't you treat the other articles in the same way?
You are missing the whole point of VfD. The point is to ask a wide audience - that "thousand people" - "Is this article worth keeping, or do we move it elsewhere/delete it?". The point of VfD is consensus. Placing the request on the Talk leads to a very very limited audience
- how many Wikipedians read Talk pages on a regular basis? And
unitarily moving it is even worse.
What kind of wider audience? One composed of people who know as little about the subject as you? At least those who respond on the talk page will have some interest in the subject.. Consensus is hard work about finding a solution that will please most people. A simple (or simplistic) delete or keep solution does not leave room for consensus.
Ec
Thankyou. Those non-arguments are continually brought up by people, and responses mentioning their uselessness ignored.