Thanks for pointing out some of the flaws in [[Votes for Deletion]].
I pretty much ignore that page completely. Except a few cases where someone called my attention to a doomed article they thought I might care about.
Instead, once or twice a month I glance at the article deletion log and resurrect anything that was thrown out too hastily (it's the Ent in me, I guess: no such thing as dead wood, hoom, hoom).
The voting process is silly, and there's no consensus.
Whatever happened to [[Wikipedia:be bold]]?
Anyway, I hardly ever want to delete anything; I'd rather fix it. I can followe Ahoermeister (spelling?) around and un-delete half the stuff he throws out and make a perfectly good stub out of it...
Ed Poor
Poor, Edmund W wrote:
Thanks for pointing out some of the flaws in [[Votes for Deletion]].
I pretty much ignore that page completely. Except a few cases where someone called my attention to a doomed article they thought I might care about.
Instead, once or twice a month I glance at the article deletion log and resurrect anything that was thrown out too hastily (it's the Ent in me, I guess: no such thing as dead wood, hoom, hoom).
The voting process is silly, and there's no consensus.
Whatever happened to [[Wikipedia:be bold]]?
Anyway, I hardly ever want to delete anything; I'd rather fix it. I can followe Ahoermeister (spelling?) around and un-delete half the stuff he throws out and make a perfectly good stub out of it...
While that's often true, it's also often not. If some grad student puts his resume up, what are you supposed to do with it? Do we really need a stub saying "so and so is a first-year graduate student at the university of idaho; he has not yet published any papers or done any noteworthy research"? What about the case a few months ago where someone was making up characters supposedly from books that as far as anyone can discern don't actually exist? Malicious or just plain useless stuff like that really needs to go, and there's not much else you can do with it. And putting it on VfD is better than assuming it's crap and deleting on sight, because sometimes you turn out to be wrong and it actually wasn't crap, so it's nice to run it by people first to make sure.
As far as stubbing things goes as well, I'm not that sure it makes much difference either way. If the submission was about a legitimate topic but a content-free submission, nothing's really lost by deleting it. Sure, you can undelete and stub it, but if it was content-free anyway, you could just as easily stub it from scratch without undeleting. It doesn't take too much research to write two sentences from scratch on most topics (a google search usually suffices). I'd personally rather just delete crap, and readd it later when someone has something contentful to write about it; there's thousands of potential articles to be written, so there's no reason we should be forced to write a particular one right now just because someone submitted nonsense with its title. Just delete it, and write it later if anyone feels like it (or write a different article instead; doesn't matter much either way).
The main problem I see with not deleting crap is that it won't all get fixed for a while, and then the links will be blue instead of red. Instead of a source text, I'd much rather have a red link. The source text adds no content (it's easy to google for), so there's no advantage to having it on Wikipedia in the meantime until a real article gets written, and some disadvantage.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
[...] If some grad student puts his resume up, what are you supposed to do with it? Do we really need a stub saying "so and so is a first-year graduate student at the university of idaho; he has not yet published any papers or done any noteworthy research"? What about the case a few months ago where someone was making up characters supposedly from books that as far as anyone can discern don't actually exist? Malicious or just plain useless stuff like that really needs to go, and there's not much else you can do with it. And putting it on VfD is better than assuming it's crap and deleting on sight, because sometimes you turn out to be wrong and it actually wasn't crap, so it's nice to run it by people first to make sure.
As far as stubbing things goes as well, I'm not that sure it makes much difference either way. If the submission was about a legitimate topic but a content-free submission, nothing's really lost by deleting it. Sure, you can undelete and stub it, but if it was content-free anyway, you could just as easily stub it from scratch without undeleting. It doesn't take too much research to write two sentences from scratch on most topics (a google search usually suffices). I'd personally rather just delete crap, and readd it later when someone has something contentful to write about it; there's thousands of potential articles to be written, so there's no reason we should be forced to write a particular one right now just because someone submitted nonsense with its title. Just delete it, and write it later if anyone feels like it (or write a different article instead; doesn't matter much either way).
The main problem I see with not deleting crap is that it won't all get fixed for a while, and then the links will be blue instead of red. Instead of a source text, I'd much rather have a red link. The source text adds no content (it's easy to google for), so there's no advantage to having it on Wikipedia in the meantime until a real article gets written, and some disadvantage.
I think part of the problem is that VfD is a lightning rod for dispute. 90% of the discussion could have taken place on the talk page (remember talk pages? :-) ), and as usual there's nothing to prevent poor content from being severely modified or even deleted. Junk article names could be redirected to a designated page called [[Dead End]], and if nobody ever re-edits the article into a non-redir, then a periodic scan of "what links here" will give candidates for quiet deletion if anyone wants to bother then.
Much of the time the junk articles are orphans, so it's unlikely that readers will ever see them, and so there's really no urgency about doing something with them *today*. Creation rate is just a small percentage of legitimate article creation, so they will alway be a minority.
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote in part:
I think part of the problem is that VfD is a lightning rod for dispute. 90% of the discussion could have taken place on the talk page (remember talk pages? :-) ), and as usual there's nothing to prevent poor content from being severely modified or even deleted. Junk article names could be redirected to a designated page called [[Dead End]], and if nobody ever re-edits the article into a non-redir, then a periodic scan of "what links here" will give candidates for quiet deletion if anyone wants to bother then.
The idea of [[Dead End]] (or [[Wikipedia:Dead End]], to be proper) gives me two immediate reactions:
1) This isn't as clean or professional as a straight-out deletion. 2) This is reversible by any editor, thus much more wiki.
I find it likely that much of the acrimony on VfD, and certainly the impetus for voting over consensus, is the inherenly unwiki nature of admin-led deletions. Making the process more wiki won't just please some ideologues (like Ec, or Cunc, or even myself for that matter); it will also lower the finality, hence importance, of the vote, leading to reduced tension and calmer tempers. (Goodness knows I hate to look at VfD anymore.)
Some people will probably find (1) much more important than (2). But (1) is a dime a dozen; (2) is what makes Wikipedia what it is.
-- Toby
Delirium wrote:
While that's often true, it's also often not. If some grad student puts his resume up, what are you supposed to do with it? Do we really need a stub saying "so and so is a first-year graduate student at the university of idaho; he has not yet published any papers or done any noteworthy research"? What about the case a few months ago where someone was making up characters supposedly from books that as far as anyone can discern don't actually exist? Malicious or just plain useless stuff like that really needs to go, and there's not much else you can do with it. And putting it on VfD is better than assuming it's crap and deleting on sight, because sometimes you turn out to be wrong and it actually wasn't crap, so it's nice to run it by people first to make sure.
As far as stubbing things goes as well, I'm not that sure it makes much difference either way. If the submission was about a legitimate topic but a content-free submission, nothing's really lost by deleting it. Sure, you can undelete and stub it, but if it was content-free anyway, you could just as easily stub it from scratch without undeleting. It doesn't take too much research to write two sentences from scratch on most topics (a google search usually suffices). I'd personally rather just delete crap, and readd it later when someone has something contentful to write about it; there's thousands of potential articles to be written, so there's no reason we should be forced to write a particular one right now just because someone submitted nonsense with its title. Just delete it, and write it later if anyone feels like it (or write a different article instead; doesn't matter much either way).
The main problem I see with not deleting crap is that it won't all get fixed for a while, and then the links will be blue instead of red. Instead of a source text, I'd much rather have a red link. The source text adds no content (it's easy to google for), so there's no advantage to having it on Wikipedia in the meantime until a real article gets written, and some disadvantage.
Some people just don't get it. Most of what Mark describes really should be deleted, but that's not the issue. The issue is about a demented voting system that alienates people. It's about people who judge the work of others to be crap. If people don't get around to fixing these articles for a while it's NO BIG DEAL. In the midst of 167,000 articles this handful is no challenge to the credibility of Wikipedia.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Some people just don't get it. Most of what Mark describes really should be deleted, but that's not the issue. The issue is about a demented voting system that alienates people. It's about people who judge the work of others to be crap. If people don't get around to fixing these articles for a while it's NO BIG DEAL. In the midst of 167,000 articles this handful is no challenge to the credibility of Wikipedia.
I'm not that sure about that. I've actually run across non-articles on Wikipedia before while doing research, which was rather annoying (for example, a dump of the full text of some treaty masquerading as an "article" on that treaty). If we didn't delete these sorts of things, there'd be a lot more of that, which I think would hurt Wikipedia's credibility ("250,000 articles, but only 190,000 real ones" isn't a good tagline). When someone finds a Wikipedia article, it should be at least a decent stub, in order to keep our reputation for quality at least moderately high. "Oh, Wikipedia doesn't have an article on this subject" is a lot better than "Wikipedia has an article on this subject, let me click on that... oh, never mind, it's not a real article, just a 155KB text dump."
I do agree that the whole process should be less antagonistic, but I'm not too sure what to do about that. There are some fundamental disagreements about what sorts of things should be in Wikipedia (for example, [[List of multiracial people]]), and somehow these have to be resolved. I'm not sure "just don't delete any of them" is the best resolution (another easy one would be "delete all lists", but I don't think that's particularly good either--though it might not be any worse than "leave all lists", really).
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Some people just don't get it. Most of what Mark describes really should be deleted, but that's not the issue. The issue is about a demented voting system that alienates people. It's about people who judge the work of others to be crap. If people don't get around to fixing these articles for a while it's NO BIG DEAL. In the midst of 167,000 articles this handful is no challenge to the credibility of Wikipedia.
I'm not that sure about that. I've actually run across non-articles on Wikipedia before while doing research, which was rather annoying (for example, a dump of the full text of some treaty masquerading as an "article" on that treaty). If we didn't delete these sorts of things, there'd be a lot more of that, which I think would hurt Wikipedia's credibility ("250,000 articles, but only 190,000 real ones" isn't a good tagline). When someone finds a Wikipedia article, it should be at least a decent stub, in order to keep our reputation for quality at least moderately high. "Oh, Wikipedia doesn't have an article on this subject" is a lot better than "Wikipedia has an article on this subject, let me click on that... oh, never mind, it's not a real article, just a 155KB text dump."
But under the current Wikipedia rules, you're allowed and even encouraged to replace that text dump with a one-sentence stub, no questions asked, no votes required, and almost certainly no one objecting. It should arouse curiosity that a normal everyday task of clearing junk text suddenly becomes a big deal when it's a '''DELETION''', since the net effect is very nearly the same.
Ironically, we even tell people not to make a big deal when reverting vandalism, so as not to gratify the vandals' desire for attention. How they must enjoy the fierce combats that erupt over VfD-listed articles! (And indeed some of the postings on VfD clearly indicate that articles are being created precisely to start fights - the trolls are now having to push their plates back before they burst at the seams. :-) )
Stan
--- Delirium delirium@rufus.d2g.com wrote:
I'm not that sure about that. I've actually run across non-articles on Wikipedia before while doing research, which was rather annoying (for example, a dump of the full text of some treaty masquerading as an "article" on that treaty).
So put them on Cleanup! Leave "VFD" as your sole POV opinion of the "issue" -- but report the actual *issue on Cleanup.
If we didn't delete these sorts of things, there'd be a lot more of that, which I think would hurt Wikipedia's credibility ("250,000 articles, but only 190,000 real ones" isn't a good tagline).
"If we dont kill them they are going to kill us... Aarrggh!" You dont belong to any... cults... do you Mark? I mean besides this one. :)
When someone finds a Wikipedia article, it should be at least a decent stub, in order to keep our reputation for quality at least moderately high.
This can be better emphasized with consistent correction -- by example -- wikifying, making a comment, etc. Not slapping the hand of the people that make a wiki work. Dont be wikelitist now....
"Oh, Wikipedia doesn't have an article on this subject" is a lot better than "Wikipedia has an article on this subject, let me click on that... oh, never mind, it's not a real article, just a 155KB text dump."
All your complaints are about newbies and their newbieism -- its better to deal with them with some respect than simply flushing what they do down the drain. I remember when "Stevertigo" was up for deletion -- someone ( I forget) made it a simple redirect -- I remember feeling sort of.. picked on just for that... and maybe if people werent reasonable about it (Rick...) then that would have soured my opinion of the community.
I do agree that the whole process should be less antagonistic, but I'm not too sure what to do about that.
Try "Cleaning up" articles instead of automatically "Delete" ing them.
~S~
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Stevertigo wrote:
Try "Cleaning up" articles instead of automatically "Delete" ing them.
In general I'm fairly convinced. I previously hadn't been familiar with Cleanup (it was a little bit baffling the one time I stumbled across it). In the future if I come across a text dump of a treaty or something similar, I'll either replace with a stub, or if I don't have the time or inclination list on Cleanup so it doesn't get overlooked.
The main remaining problem for VfD then is things that don't belong in Wikipedia at all. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there's a non-antagonistic way to resolve that, since the very idea of what belongs in Wikipedia is a contentious issue, with a wide range of opinions on just how inclusive we should be. To pick just one example currently on there, some people find [[List of localities in Britain where rare ant species had previously been recorded but are no longer considered to be present]] to be a useful encyclopedia article, while others consider the very existence of an article with such a title as bordering on the ludicrous. It's not really an issue of cleaning up, because the people who object to its inclusion are objecting to its very existence, not to its current state.
Oddly I think [[List of...]] discussions are probably a good 80% of the contentious issues on VfD these days, so *something* needs to be done about that. What, I'm not sure. The other 20% seem to be mostly "is this famous or just self-aggrandizing" (cf. [[Daniel C. Boyer]], random webcomics, etc.), but I think we can manage to handle those if we got rid of all the List discussions.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
In general I'm fairly convinced. I previously hadn't been familiar with Cleanup (it was a little bit baffling the one time I stumbled across it). In the future if I come across a text dump of a treaty or something similar, I'll either replace with a stub, or if I don't have the time or inclination list on Cleanup so it doesn't get overlooked.
Hooray!!! We're getting somewhere! Nobody seriously objected when the entire text of "Origin of Species", "Macbeth" and the Oregon State Constitution were deleted.
The main remaining problem for VfD then is things that don't belong in Wikipedia at all. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if there's a non-antagonistic way to resolve that, since the very idea of what belongs in Wikipedia is a contentious issue, with a wide range of opinions on just how inclusive we should be. To pick just one example currently on there, some people find [[List of localities in Britain where rare ant species had previously been recorded but are no longer considered to be present]] to be a useful encyclopedia article, while others consider the very existence of an article with such a title as bordering on the ludicrous. It's not really an issue of cleaning up, because the people who object to its inclusion are objecting to its very existence, not to its current state.
My inclination with the long example-title would be to create a reasonable place to redirect, change all the links that lead there to the new title, wait for a month, then quietly delete the long-titled article. A lot of other lists would be better served by consolidation.
A very few lists seem to generate heat well beyond their merit. The List of heterosexuals has been like that. It's become a lightning rod. Geting rid of that one will just send the lightning elsewhere. Occasionally threatening to delete it (without actually doing so) keeps the attention of its proponents focused where they can be relatively harmless. :-)
As for lists generally, I think that they have a peculiar fascination for people. I suspect that it is just as strong for Wikipedia readers as for writers. I don't know whether there have ever been any psychological studies on this kind of thing, nor do I know how we might go about designing an experiment to scientifically test this hypothesis.
Oddly I think [[List of...]] discussions are probably a good 80% of the contentious issues on VfD these days, so *something* needs to be done about that. What, I'm not sure. The other 20% seem to be mostly "is this famous or just self-aggrandizing" (cf. [[Daniel C. Boyer]], random webcomics, etc.), but I think we can manage to handle those if we got rid of all the List discussions.
That "other 20%" is a big grab-bag. I tend to give the writer the benefit of the doubt, and to look at these on a case by case basis with many different possibilities. If an orphan article with no redeeming value was contributed by an anonymous user and nothing has happened to it for a month no one will notice if it's quietly deleted.
Ec
Eclecticolgoy (Ray Saintonge) wrote in part:
My inclination with the long example-title would be to create a reasonable place to redirect, change all the links that lead there to the new title, wait for a month, then quietly delete the long-titled article. A lot of other lists would be better served by consolidation.
The final sentence is the only serious disagreement that I have with anything that you've said on this matter, Ec. Once we move the article to a more convenient name, then the long name is harmless and it's ''OK'' to leave it alone. OTOH, if it exists for a month, then it will get archived, so there is a reason, assuming that you didn't catch it immediately, why it's ''good'' to leave it alone.
This is the "Redirect, don't delete!" slogan (well, part of it).
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
Eclecticolgoy (Ray Saintonge) wrote in part:
My inclination with the long example-title would be to create a reasonable place to redirect, change all the links that lead there to the new title, wait for a month, then quietly delete the long-titled article. A lot of other lists would be better served by consolidation.
The final sentence is the only serious disagreement that I have with anything that you've said on this matter, Ec. Once we move the article to a more convenient name, then the long name is harmless and it's ''OK'' to leave it alone. OTOH, if it exists for a month, then it will get archived, so there is a reason, assuming that you didn't catch it immediately, why it's ''good'' to leave it alone.
This is the "Redirect, don't delete!" slogan (well, part of it).
I don't think we really have a big difference here. All that would be left to delete after a month is a redirecting article with a long title that is too long to be something that would be used in a search. I know the argument that redirect articles take up minimal space in the DB. I clashed with Mav on that when I was suggesting in my newbie days that some old Camel Case titles should be deleted.
Sigh, what with the first computer that I ever met face to face having been one with drum memory, and paper tape, that's tended to taint my attitude toward memory even now as we get closer to terabyte drives.
Ultimately deleting the orphaned redirecting remnant was relly the least important element in my proposal.
Ec
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't think we really have a big difference here. All that would be left to delete after a month is a redirecting article with a long title that is too long to be something that would be used in a search. I know the argument that redirect articles take up minimal space in the DB. I clashed with Mav on that when I was suggesting in my newbie days that some old Camel Case titles should be deleted.
Mav's only human -- and back in those days, old CC titles were still fresh -- just because WP upgraded, dont mean that you get rid of all those nice searchwords. This is why all the list business got brought up again -- a year ago Jimbo found that Google just fell in love with "list of" pages and said so on the list (mail) --it instantly became policy that something like a [[list of theoretical opinions on the exact contents of Britney Spears underpants]] was going to get WP *hits!, and therefore --people "saw that it was good."
Now of course we deal with the fact that all of these [[lists of famous last meal toasts and/or last beverages]] are actually noticeable and "hurt the integrity of Wikipedia" far more than the stubs do -- stubs are nice to newbies (no politics), and are at least excusable, which is more than can be said for the [[list of how famous people like their coffee, cream and sugar]].
~S~ "Reaching for an oversized chrome spoon he gathers an intimate quantity of dried muffin remnants ..."
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Eclecticology (Ray Saintonge) wrote in part:
Toby Bartels wrote:
Once we move the article to a more convenient name, then the long name is harmless and it's ''OK'' to leave it alone. OTOH, if it exists for a month, then it will get archived, so there is a reason, assuming that you didn't catch it immediately, why it's ''good'' to leave it alone.
I don't think we really have a big difference here. All that would be left to delete after a month is a redirecting article with a long title that is too long to be something that would be used in a search.
It's not the search that matters; if the title is long and awful, then it's unlikely to ever be typed in again by anybody. Except ... that if it's been sitting around for a month, then it might be saved by somebody (not only Google). So we should keep it ... since it's cheap in the memory:
I know the argument that redirect articles take up minimal space in the DB.
Ultimately deleting the orphaned redirecting remnant was really the least important element in my proposal.
And that's why we don't really have a big difference here: you'll be relatively willing to give that bit up. ^_^
-- Toby
Nobody automatically deletes much. That's what VfD is for. Cleanup is garbage.
RickK
Stevertigo utilitymuffinresearch2@yahoo.com wrote: Try "Cleaning up" articles instead of automatically "Delete" ing them.
~S~
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Delirium (Mark) wrote in part:
There are some fundamental disagreements about what sorts of things should be in Wikipedia (for example, [[List of multiracial people]]), and somehow these have to be resolved. I'm not sure "just don't delete any of them" is the best resolution (another easy one would be "delete all lists", but I don't think that's particularly good either--though it might not be any worse than "leave all lists", really).
I'm convinced that some of these lists, even ones that I've defended, have been created by trolls (less newbie than they pretend to be) trying to test Wikipedia's policy or accuse us of hypocrisy or bias. If deletion was not such a big deal -- by being more wiki in nature -- then it would be easier to ignore (that is, don't feed) the trolls.
I think that Wikipedia has too many pointless lists. But if they're being created by people that are actually interested, rather than by people that are out to prove a point, then they're harmless. So I vote ("vote" verb used in OED sense 9b) "leave all lists" -- with the exception of those that would be deleted for some other reason. (After all, one should never leave "all" unqualified.)
-- Toby
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Some people just don't get it. Most of what Mark describes really should be deleted, but that's not the issue. The issue is about a demented voting system that alienates people. It's about people who judge the work of others to be crap. If people don't get around to fixing these articles for a while it's NO BIG DEAL. In the midst of 167,000 articles this handful is no challenge to the credibility of Wikipedia.
Ec
My G-sh, Ray -- you're actually pretty damn to-the-point when you get irritated.
:D ~S~
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Ed Poor wrote in part:
Instead, once or twice a month I glance at the article deletion log and resurrect anything that was thrown out too hastily (it's the Ent in me, I guess: no such thing as dead wood, hoom, hoom).
Ed, I'd like to hear more (on the list or by email) about how you find this tactic works for you -- especially given the cautious approach you take to most controversy. For example, do people get upset at your undeletions? Do you find yourself spending a lot of time researching good stubs to replace deleted text on articles that you'd otherwise ignore? And so on.
-- Toby
This is an insult to the people who actually participate in Votes for Deletion and feel that we and the page provide a useful function. If you feel that any and all pages need to be kept, then why don't you say so on the VfD page? Because you are better than that? You're above it? VfD is beneath your contempt? You are so much superior to those of us who feel that made-up articles and people's resumes don't belong on Wikipedia?
Please explain how to fix an article which contains nothing but a resume of someone nobody has ever heard of.
RickK
"Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote: Thanks for pointing out some of the flaws in [[Votes for Deletion]].
I pretty much ignore that page completely. Except a few cases where someone called my attention to a doomed article they thought I might care about.
Instead, once or twice a month I glance at the article deletion log and resurrect anything that was thrown out too hastily (it's the Ent in me, I guess: no such thing as dead wood, hoom, hoom).
The voting process is silly, and there's no consensus.
Whatever happened to [[Wikipedia:be bold]]?
Anyway, I hardly ever want to delete anything; I'd rather fix it. I can followe Ahoermeister (spelling?) around and un-delete half the stuff he throws out and make a perfectly good stub out of it...
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