Going through AfD today, I was struck by frequent accusations of 'advertising' being thrown at articles about companies and commercial products, and contributors to those articles. (The case I especially noticed was [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roland System-100]], but that's only one specific example; it's an endemic problem). I think this is a problem, an assumption of bad faith, and an unnecessary biting of newbies.
I think that Wikipedia being constantly bombarded by genuine spam has put us in an overly defensive mindset, which is also fed by the free-software anti-commercial attitude of some contributors. Spam is when an article is created to garner publicity or hits. It's not documenting anything anyone cares about, it's instead trying to give false respectability to something our readers don't want to see.
We delete huge amounts of things as 'Spam' and 'Blatant advertising' that are not. They are well-meaning attempts by someone who is interested in something to document it in Wikipedia. By calling their attempts to help by such names, we are burning people. We're taking someone who might become a useful contributor and slapping them because they had the temerity not to know the rules, including the unwritten ones.
Some of these articles shouldn't be created at all, because no reliable sources exist for them. If that's the case, that's what we should tell the contributor. In other cases sources exist but the creator didn't cite them; this is a cleanup issue. In yet other cases, the information belongs in Wikipedia, but not where the contributor placed it; an education issue. And yes, I realize that workload means that new page patrollers etc. may have to work in a hurry - templated messages that don't assume bad faith can be made, and even deletions can be done without insulting.
In many cases what's deemed 'advertising' isn't advertising at all, as in the above example; that Roland synth hasn't been sold in almost 30 years, and nobody's trying to make money by writing a Wikipedia article about it. What's actually the case is that the article has been written by someone who doesn't know our house style. It reads like an article on a vintage-synths website, written by an enthusiast. The difference between enthusiast-site writing and encyclopedia writing has to be learned.
Can we start to not assume that peoples' motives are bad unless they show that they are?
-Matt
On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 5:02 PM, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Going through AfD today, I was struck by frequent accusations of 'advertising' being thrown at articles about companies and commercial products, and contributors to those articles. (The case I especially noticed was [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roland System-100]], but that's only one specific example; it's an endemic problem). I think this is a problem, an assumption of bad faith, and an unnecessary biting of newbies.
Interesting example. I have a dear friend whose first (and only, AFAIK) articles on WP were about specific pieces of Roland equipment. (There's actually a rather impressive collection of similar articles here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Synthesizers_by_manufacturer). It would have doubtless been pretty demoralizing for my friend, who is a hard-core free software and free culture enthusiast as well as a techno artist, if he'd be accused of "advertising" with his articles. We actually talked about it a bit and I assured him that I thought the subject was notable enough for an article.
This is truly one of those cases where the articles primarily exist for the enthusiasts, and where we should remember that Wikipedia exists for a specialist audience (in this case, electronic music geeks) as well as a general one. Articles like this are probably not the most "important" encyclopedic subjects we have; but they do make a great entrypoint for a hobbyist or professional who might not otherwise start editing. Besides, we might as well have the best online encyclopedia about synthesizers, along with everything else!
-- phoebe
On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I think that Wikipedia being constantly bombarded by genuine spam has put us in an overly defensive mindset, which is also fed by the free-software anti-commercial attitude of some contributors. Spam is when an article is created to garner publicity or hits. It's not documenting anything anyone cares about, it's instead trying to give false respectability to something our readers don't want to see.
Yes, in the same way that "vandal fighters" start to see vandalism everywhere, especially in well-meaning but in some way malformed contributions.
It's also the work of the false presumption that NPOV means we must have *something* negative to say about every subject, or else the article is unbalanced.
On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 1:38 AM, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
I think that Wikipedia being constantly bombarded by genuine spam has put us in an overly defensive mindset, which is also fed by the free-software anti-commercial attitude of some contributors. Spam is when an article is created to garner publicity or hits. It's not documenting anything anyone cares about, it's instead trying to give false respectability to something our readers don't want to see.
Yes, in the same way that "vandal fighters" start to see vandalism everywhere, especially in well-meaning but in some way malformed contributions.
This is a very good point. Maybe it's related to the phenomenon that as soon as you get a new car you start seeing it everywhere...
Anyway, for the first few months it was this way for me too. One of the biggest helps was watching current-event articles develop. I'd see edits that I thought were vandalism but I'd wait and see what happened. Most of the time someone else would come along and salvage some content from the edit and incorporate it. Fascinating to watch, especially in real-time. It really helps you see how important AGF/BITE are.
On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 1:38 AM, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, in the same way that "vandal fighters" start to see vandalism everywhere, especially in well-meaning but in some way malformed contributions.
I can see this happening easily with realtime anti-vandal programs like Huggle where there is a race to get the vandalism before another user or a bot does.