Stirling Newberry (stirling.newberry@xigenics.net) [050519 03:48]:
The size problem will be solved by a distribution system, probably one that includes rating of articles. The local geography articles will get low ratings and thus not be in the "short" version of wikipedia.
Yes. VFD is supposed to be an immune system, to keep out the *shit*. It's far too blunt a tool to try to use as a general quality-control system, which is why people get so very upset when articles that are NPOV and verifiable get nominated for VFD on grounds that are, per the deletion policy, spurious.
(pointing to wikien-l - this is really en: related)
- d.
On 5/18/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Yes. VFD is supposed to be an immune system, to keep out the *shit*. It's far too blunt a tool to try to use as a general quality-control system, which is why people get so very upset when articles that are NPOV and verifiable get nominated for VFD on grounds that are, per the deletion policy, spurious.
Why even NPOV?
We edit to fix POV text, why do we not rename to fix POV titles?
If I write about "A borgoula is a purple monster that eats little children", you could fix verifiability by finding a citation and changing it to "Gmaxwell claims a borgoula is" or "A borgoula exists in gmaxwells imagination"... Why not? If I published a book on it, we'd allow my fans to make articles about it.
When it comes down to it, if we only use the criteria of "verifiable and NPOV" we end up with the prohibition on original research as being the only real control on what can go into wikipedia after a little tidying up. This is amusing because the direction to avoid original research is often taken merely as advice and only used as a rule when there is conflict, which is good: Consider the case of articles on works of art or pieces of music; much of the time it is the not-directly-citable/barely-indirectly-citable opinions that make the articles worth reading at all.
Gregory Maxwell said:
When it comes down to it, if we only use the criteria of "verifiable and NPOV" we end up with the prohibition on original research as being the only real control on what can go into wikipedia after a little tidying up.
That's basically it. With the proviso that an editor must want to write about it. Unwanted articles should never get written. There is a slight flaw here if we permit people to produce articles using bots, such as rambot, but that seems to be a result of a general decision that a certain class of geographical feature should be in Wikipedia. Not an unreasonable assumption, but not without its problems in the early days. This is amusing because the direction to avoid original
research is often taken merely as advice and only used as a rule when there is conflict
That is not my understanding. "No original research" is official policy.
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com Gregory Maxwell said:
When it comes down to it, if we only use the criteria of "verifiable and NPOV" we end up with the prohibition on original research as being the only real control on what can go into wikipedia after a little tidying up.
That's basically it.
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are much clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are in the case of articles about schools.
Jay.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050519 08:30]:
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are much clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are in the case of articles about schools.
Excellent! Where's this notability policy?
- d.
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050519 08:30]:
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are
much
clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are in the
case
of articles about schools.
Excellent! Where's this notability policy?
[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] is a good place to start.
Jay.
JAY JG said:
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050519 08:30]:
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are
much
clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are in the
case
of articles about schools.
Excellent! Where's this notability policy?
[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] is a good place to start.
"Wikipedia is not a collection of ideas, concepts, institutions and places I haven't heard of or don't think are significant", perhaps? :)
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
JAY JG said:
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050519 08:30]:
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are
much
clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are in the
case
of articles about schools.
Excellent! Where's this notability policy?
[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] is a good place to start.
"Wikipedia is not a collection of ideas, concepts, institutions and places I haven't heard of or don't think are significant", perhaps? :)
That's not what the policy says; perhaps you should read it.
Jay.
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
JAY JG said:
(with respect to the mythical "notability policy"):
[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] is a good place to start.
"Wikipedia is not a collection of ideas, concepts, institutions and places I haven't heard of or don't think are significant", perhaps? :)
That's not what the policy says; perhaps you should read it.
Indeed I'm very aware that it isn't policy. There is no such policy with regard to non-biographical subjects.
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
JAY JG said:
[[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] is a good place to start.
"Wikipedia is not a collection of ideas, concepts, institutions and places I haven't heard of or don't think are significant", perhaps? :)
That's not what the policy says; perhaps you should read it.
Indeed I'm very aware that it isn't policy. There is no such policy with regard to non-biographical subjects.
Right. You made a strawman argument and I called you on it. I encourage reading [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]]; it lists many different notability criteria excluding all sorts of things.
Jay.
JAY JG said:
Right. You made a strawman argument and I called you on it.
I must have missed where I did that. As I said before, I think the problem is that here we have such a fluid, ill-defined concept that we could keep on arguing forever to no practical end.
On Thursday, May 19, 2005 12:43 AM, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050519 08:30]:
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are much clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are in the case of articles about schools.
Excellent! Where's this notability policy?
Sadly for those that protest its many apparent fantastical abilities, only in their minds.
Yours,
From: "James D. Forrester" james@jdforrester.org
On Thursday, May 19, 2005 12:43 AM, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050519 08:30]:
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are much clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are
in
the case of articles about schools.
Excellent! Where's this notability policy?
Sadly for those that protest its many apparent fantastical abilities, only in their minds.
James, is it only in my mind that [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] states "Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base, that is, it is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information. That something is 100% true does not mean it is suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia."? Did I just imagine that it says "Subjects of encyclopedia articles must have a claim to fame besides being fondly remembered by their friends and relatives." and "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of notoriety or achievement"? What are these and similar statements, if not notability policies?
Jay.
JAY JG said:
WP:WWIN:
Did I just imagine that it says "Subjects of encyclopedia articles must have a claim to fame besides being fondly remembered by their friends and relatives."
WIN a memorial. Refers to people.
and "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of notoriety or achievement"? What are these and similar statements, if not notability policies?
Don't seem to be applicable to schools, which are in any case used and remembered by far more than "their friends and relatives". We're talking about institutions that (in the case of state public schools at least) have a pretty big footprint in the community.
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com JAY JG said:
Don't seem to be applicable to schools, which are in any case used and remembered by far more than "their friends and relatives". We're talking about institutions that (in the case of state public schools at least) have a pretty big footprint in the community.
But Tony, the claim (which is often made), and to which I was responding, was that Wikipedia had *no* notability policies. Clearly it does, though it doesn't specifically use the word "notability" to describe them. Whether or not schools are included/excluded by these notability rules is a continuing debate.
Jay.
JAY JG said:
But Tony, the claim (which is often made), and to which I was responding, was that Wikipedia had *no* notability policies. Clearly it does, though it doesn't specifically use the word "notability" to describe them.
Well we could go around in circles about this, but I'll just register my disagreement with this again and we can move on. I don't think we can realistically cast WWIN as a "notability" policy, you think it is. Fair enough.
JAY JG wrote:
James, is it only in my mind that [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] states "Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base, that is, it is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information. That something is 100% true does not mean it is suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia."? Did I just imagine that it says "Subjects of encyclopedia articles must have a claim to fame besides being fondly remembered by their friends and relatives." and "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of notoriety or achievement"? What are these and similar statements, if not notability policies?
This section of _What Wikipedia is not_ IMO doesn't imply anything specifically about "notability". This is the complete list of examples it gives:
While there is a continuing debate about the encyclopedic merits of several classes of entries, current consensus is that Wikipedia articles are not:
- *Lists of Frequently Asked Questions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAQ*. Wikipedia articles should not list FAQs. Instead, format the information provided as neutral prose within the appropriate article(s). You may want to consider contributing FAQ lists to Wikibooks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks.
- *Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics* such as quotations, aphorisms or persons. If you want to enter lists of quotations, put them into our sister project Wikiquote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiquote. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous /because/ they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic. Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference.
- *Travel guides*. An article on Paris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris should mention landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower and the Louvre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre, but not the telephone number or street address of your favorite hotel or the price of a /café au lait/ on the Champs-Elysées http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champs-Elys%E9es. Such details are, however, very welcome at Wikitravel http://wikitravel.org/ (/http://wikitravel.org//), but note that due to license incompatibility you cannot copy content wholesale unless you are the copyright holder.
- *Memorials*. It's always sad when people die, but Wikipedia is not the place to honor them. Subjects of encyclopedia articles must have a claim to fame besides being fondly remembered by their friends and relatives.
- *News reports*. Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories (however, our sister project Wikinews http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikinews does exactly that). Wikipedia does have many /encyclopedia articles/ on topics of historical significance that are currently in the news, and can be significantly more up-to-date than most reference sources since we can incorporate new developments and facts as they are made known. See current events http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_events for examples.
- *Genealogical entries*, or *phonebook entries*. Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of notoriety or achievement. One measure of achievement is whether someone has been featured in several external sources (on or off-line). Minor characters may be mentioned within other articles (e.g. Ronald Gay in Persecution of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_gays%2C_lesbians%2C_bisexuals%2C_and_the_transgendered). See m:Wikipeople http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipeople for a proposed genealogical/biographical dictionary project.
- *Directories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory, directory entries*, or a *resource for conducting business*. For example, an article on a radio station generally shouldn't list upcoming events, current promotions, phone numbers, etc (although mention of major events or promotions may be acceptable). Furthermore, the Talk pages associated with an article are for talking about the article, not for conducting the business of the topic of the article.
This guideline seems more like a restriction against database dumps and articles containing non-encyclopedic content such as phone numbers to me. It's about what _types_ of information should be in Wikipedia, not whether the information needs to be "notable". (the memorial and genealogical entries points do mention notability, but the threshold is so low that I suspect it's not applicable to many of the cases where people have argued that articles they think are non-notable should be deleted. Every single prof at my university would pass, for example. And they're specific to people in any case, so it's no help with the disputes over schools).
Perhaps it's time we actually started a page on notability policy so that something more definitive could be worked out rather than relying on these subjective attempts to figure out what other policies imply? That would still leave lots of openeings for subjectivity when determining whether any particular article is notable, but at least there wouldn't be so much argument over "non-notable articles must be purged, inclusionist scum!"/"Anything verifiable deserves an encyclopedia article, deletionist scum!"
Bryan Derksen (bryan.derksen@shaw.ca) [050520 02:00]:
Perhaps it's time we actually started a page on notability policy so that something more definitive could be worked out rather than relying on these subjective attempts to figure out what other policies imply? That would still leave lots of openeings for subjectivity when determining whether any particular article is notable, but at least there wouldn't be so much argument over "non-notable articles must be purged, inclusionist scum!"/"Anything verifiable deserves an encyclopedia article, deletionist scum!"
We did already. [[Wikipedia:Notability]] redirects to [[Wikipedia:Importance]], which notes that a poll of this sort at [[Talk:Fame and importance]] achieved a simple majority but nothing like consensus (oddly enough). I noted this earlier on.
- d.
David Gerard said:
Bryan Derksen (bryan.derksen@shaw.ca) [050520 02:00]:
Perhaps it's time we actually started a page on notability policy so that something more definitive could be worked out rather than relying on these subjective attempts to figure out what other policies imply? That would still leave lots of openeings for subjectivity when determining whether any particular article is notable, but at least there wouldn't be so much argument over "non-notable articles must be purged, inclusionist scum!"/"Anything verifiable deserves an encyclopedia article, deletionist scum!"
We did already. [[Wikipedia:Notability]] redirects to [[Wikipedia:Importance]], which notes that a poll of this sort at [[Talk:Fame and importance]] achieved a simple majority but nothing like consensus (oddly enough). I noted this earlier on.
The Notability article has been updated today and (last time I looked) contains a copy-pasted "proposed policy".
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com Gregory Maxwell said:
When it comes down to it, if we only use the criteria of "verifiable and NPOV" we end up with the prohibition on original research as being the only real control on what can go into wikipedia after a little tidying up.
That's basically it.
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are much clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are in the case of articles about schools.
Non-notability has been rejected as a criterion for deletion. Inappropriate biographical entries can be rejected on grounds of vanity. Humans tend to be a lot less intrinsically encyclopedic, as individuals, than institutions or even cultural manifestations such as the infamous Pokemon.
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com Gregory Maxwell said:
When it comes down to it, if we only use the criteria of "verifiable and NPOV" we end up with the prohibition on original research as being the only real control on what can go into wikipedia after a little tidying up.
That's basically it.
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are much clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are in the case of articles about schools.
Non-notability has been rejected as a criterion for deletion.
By you, perhaps. Clearly not by many others.
Inappropriate biographical entries can be rejected on grounds of vanity.
And for the large number that cannot be rejected on the grounds of vanity, the various other notability criteria explicitly outlined in [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] serve well.
Humans tend to be a lot less intrinsically encyclopedic, as individuals, than institutions or even cultural manifestations such as the infamous Pokemon.
Define "intrinsically encyclopedic".
Jay.
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com Gregory Maxwell said:
When it comes down to it, if we only use the criteria of "verifiable and NPOV" we end up with the prohibition on original research as being the only real control on what can go into wikipedia after a little tidying up.
That's basically it.
Fortunately, Wikipedia's notability policies help keep out much of the trivia your proposal would allow. Unfortunately, these policies are much clearer in the case of articles about individuals than they are in the case of articles about schools.
Non-notability has been rejected as a criterion for deletion.
By you, perhaps. Clearly not by many others.
I think it's rather deeper than that. The concept isn't well defined and even as a vague notion "non-notability" commands no consensus, though of course some people like to act as if it does or even as if they were arbiters of what it means.
Inappropriate biographical entries can be rejected on grounds of vanity.
And for the large number that cannot be rejected on the grounds of vanity, the various other notability criteria explicitly outlined in [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] serve well.
Indeed. I'll resist the temptation to point out that the word "notability" appears nowhere in that compilation, and that the recently created "Wikipedia:Notability" page, apparently pasted from an article in Demi's userspace, is not official policy. The word is not helpful. Inasmuch as it's widely understood, it's controversial. Insamuch is it isn't actively opposed, it's too vague to be useful.
Humans tend to be a lot less intrinsically encyclopedic, as individuals, than institutions or even cultural manifestations such as the infamous Pokemon.
Define "intrinsically encyclopedic".
Empirically this can be defined as "having a calculable likelihood, as a class of subjects, to sustain an article that wouldn't end up being deleted if listed on VfD." In general it seems to be pretty difficult to get consensus to delete a school article, of instance, even one about a little-known high school about which nothing much is known, whereas if I wrote an article about a random human, my friend's brother say, when listed on VfD it would die a mercifully quick death.
Define "intrinsically encyclopedic".
Empirically this can be defined as "having a calculable likelihood, as a class of subjects, to sustain an article that wouldn't end up being deleted if listed on VfD." In general it seems to be pretty difficult to get consensus to delete a school article, of instance, even one about a little-known high school about which nothing much is known, whereas if I wrote an article about a random human, my friend's brother say, when listed on VfD it would die a mercifully quick death.
The reason it is hard to delete school articles is two-fold; 1) Wikipedia deletion rules are stacked in favour of inclusion; at least two-thirds of voters (and often more) must vote to delete for it to happen, and votes to re-direct are interpreted as "keep", though the obvious intent is that the article should not stand on its own. 2) School inclusionists are now organized, and have set up a "Schoolwatch" page to ensure that all schools are kept. These people vote to keep every single school, usually with cut and paste comments. Thus a group of a dozen or so inclusionists can easily force Wikipedia to keep every single school article, no matter how silly, uninformative, trivial or unverifiable they are. And, in fact, that's exactly what they do. However, whether these dozen people represent the consensus of Wikipedia is another question.
Jay.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050520 03:47]:
- School inclusionists are now organized, and have set up a "Schoolwatch"
page to ensure that all schools are kept. These people vote to keep every single school, usually with cut and paste comments.
I only use cut-and-paste comments myself in response to cut-and-paste nominations.
Thus a group of a dozen or so inclusionists can easily force Wikipedia to keep every single school article, no matter how silly, uninformative, trivial or unverifiable they are.
I look at every article I vote on first. Are you saying I, or these hypothetical conspirators, in fact don't?
And, in fact, that's exactly what they do. However, whether these dozen people represent the consensus of Wikipedia is another question.
Indeed, but that applies to the people flooding VFD with school articles, and indeed to *any* so-called "consensus" formed only of VFD habitues, so you're not actually saying something very specific.
- d.
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050520 03:47]:
- School inclusionists are now organized, and have set up a
"Schoolwatch"
page to ensure that all schools are kept. These people vote to keep
every
single school, usually with cut and paste comments.
I only use cut-and-paste comments myself in response to cut-and-paste nominations.
Fair enough, but you're not one of the people I'm talking about.
Thus a group of a dozen or so inclusionists can easily force Wikipedia to keep every
single
school article, no matter how silly, uninformative, trivial or
unverifiable
they are.
I look at every article I vote on first. Are you saying I, or these hypothetical conspirators, in fact don't?
You obviously do; you've even voted to delete some schools. The organized inclusionists do not read the article, nor do they believe they should have to; for them, including all school articles is a matter of "principle", usually of the "Wikipedia is not paper" and/or "schools are intrinsically notable" sort.
And, in fact, that's exactly what they do. However, whether these dozen people represent the consensus of Wikipedia is another
question.
Indeed, but that applies to the people flooding VFD with school articles, and indeed to *any* so-called "consensus" formed only of VFD habitues, so you're not actually saying something very specific.
You say that like it's a bad thing. ;-)
Jay.
JAY JG said:
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au
I look at every article I vote on first. Are you saying I, or these hypothetical conspirators, in fact don't?
You obviously do; you've even voted to delete some schools.
Haven't we all?
The organized inclusionists do not read the article, nor do they believe they should have to; for them, including all school articles is a matter of "principle", usually of the "Wikipedia is not paper" and/or "schools are intrinsically notable" sort.
Well that's a very serious charge. You're accusing some unnamed people of making bogus votes on VfD--copy-pasted and without looking at the article in question. Do you have some evidence to support this?
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com JAY JG said:
You obviously do; you've even voted to delete some schools.
Haven't we all?
Nope.
The organized inclusionists do not read the article, nor do they believe they should have to; for them, including all school articles is a matter of "principle", usually of the "Wikipedia is not paper" and/or "schools are intrinsically notable" sort.
Well that's a very serious charge. You're accusing some unnamed people of making bogus votes on VfD--copy-pasted and without looking at the article in question. Do you have some evidence to support this?
"Very serious charge"? Get real, this is a Wikipedia mail-list. As for evidence, here's one example of an editor who took some valuable time out of editing Pokemon related articles to make 17 identical keep votes on schools in 9 minutes, and soon after another 10 identical keep votes in 4 minutes: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=K...] Several times she was able to get in 3 keep votes a minute. I envy her her internet connection; I couldn't have even gotten to all those VfD pages in that time, much less read the related article, edited, voted, saved, and returned.
Jay.
On 5/19/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com JAY JG said:
You obviously do; you've even voted to delete some schools.
Haven't we all?
Nope.
The organized inclusionists do not read the article, nor do they believe they should have to; for them, including all school articles is a matter of "principle", usually of the "Wikipedia is not paper" and/or "schools are intrinsically notable" sort.
Well that's a very serious charge. You're accusing some unnamed people of making bogus votes on VfD--copy-pasted and without looking at the article in question. Do you have some evidence to support this?
"Very serious charge"? Get real, this is a Wikipedia mail-list. As for evidence, here's one example of an editor who took some valuable time out of editing Pokemon related articles to make 17 identical keep votes on schools in 9 minutes, and soon after another 10 identical keep votes in 4 minutes: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=K...] Several times she was able to get in 3 keep votes a minute. I envy her her internet connection; I couldn't have even gotten to all those VfD pages in that time, much less read the related article, edited, voted, saved, and returned.
Jay.
I could just about match that edit rate using multiple tabs in firefox. It would be very tricky though and I would have had to open all the edit window first.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050520 05:26]:
"Very serious charge"? Get real, this is a Wikipedia mail-list.
Then it's just trash-talking and ad hominem to a class of editors (those who want to keep the school articles), and you really should be backing it u.
As for evidence, here's one example of an editor who took some valuable time out of editing Pokemon related articles to make 17 identical keep votes on schools in 9 minutes, and soon after another 10 identical keep votes in 4 minutes: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=K...] Several times she was able to get in 3 keep votes a minute. I envy her her internet connection; I couldn't have even gotten to all those VfD pages in that time, much less read the related article, edited, voted, saved, and returned.
Assuming she edits like me (load a pile of tabs, read and vote) I'd expect to see just that result.
So do you have any other substantiation for this assertion?
- d.
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050520 05:26]:
"Very serious charge"? Get real, this is a Wikipedia mail-list.
Then it's just trash-talking and ad hominem to a class of editors (those who want to keep the school articles), and you really should be backing it u.
Again, not all school inclusionists, but a certain subset of them. And I have backed them up.
As for evidence, here's one example of an editor who took some valuable time
out
of editing Pokemon related articles to make 17 identical keep votes on schools in 9 minutes, and soon after another 10 identical keep votes in
4
minutes:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=K...]
Several times she was able to get in 3 keep votes a minute. I envy her
her
internet connection; I couldn't have even gotten to all those VfD pages
in
that time, much less read the related article, edited, voted, saved, and returned.
Assuming she edits like me (load a pile of tabs, read and vote) I'd expect to see just that result.
Do you reall think this is likely David? If I lined up 17 tabs and hit "save" on each one, I'd have had all the edits done in a couple of minutes; her edits look much more like someone who was just plowing sequentially through the list as quickly as possible. Don't forget, she was entering reasonably lengthy talk comments [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Bisexuality&diff=prev&...] just a minute before she went on her "keep" rampage, and a different one 3 minutes before that. Do you really think that while that was going on she was carefully reading each VfD'd article, then lining the VfDs up in a series of 17 Firefox tabs so that she should hit "save" on each one as close to simultaneously as possible, and even then it took 10 minutes for them all to save? I'm asking your honest opinion here.
So do you have any other substantiation for this assertion?
If you think that all the people who are making boilerplate "keep" votes in incredibly short periods of time are not actually just mindlessly and sequentially voting "keep", but rather are people who read the articles, consider them carefully, then like to line up all the votes in many different tabs so that the votes all show up on the Contributions list in as short a period of time as possible, then no. But I think my assumption is far more reasonable and plausible than yours.
Jay.
JAY JG said:
If you think that all the people who are making boilerplate "keep" votes in incredibly short periods of time are not actually just mindlessly and sequentially voting "keep", but rather are people who read the articles, consider them carefully, then like to line up all the votes in many different tabs so that the votes all show up on the Contributions list in as short a period of time as possible, then no.
Now you've said there are a number of these people, and remember that I've shown you that Ketsy is by no means an organised inclusionist--she never voted on a school deletion listing before Tuesday of this week.
So who are these organised inclusionists?
And given that Ketsy is new at this, isn't it at least plausible that she was responding in a robotic manner to what is very widely perceived as some particularly robotic deletion listings by a certain editor?
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com JAY JG said:
If you think that all the people who are making boilerplate "keep" votes in incredibly short periods of time are not actually just mindlessly and sequentially voting "keep", but rather are people who read the articles, consider them carefully, then like to line up all the votes in many different tabs so that the votes all show up on the Contributions list in as short a period of time as possible, then no.
Now you've said there are a number of these people, and remember that I've shown you that Ketsy is by no means an organised inclusionist--she never voted on a school deletion listing before Tuesday of this week.
So who are these organised inclusionists?
Where did she find all those schools? Don't you think it was from the Schoolwatch pages, set up and maintained by school inclusionists?
And given that Ketsy is new at this, isn't it at least plausible that she was responding in a robotic manner to what is very widely perceived as some particularly robotic deletion listings by a certain editor?
I suppose, but that would still make it an example of unthinking school inclusionist voting, wouldn't it?
Jay.
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com JAY JG said:
If you think that all the people who are making boilerplate "keep" votes in incredibly short periods of time are not actually just mindlessly and sequentially voting "keep", but rather are people who read the articles, consider them carefully, then like to line up all the votes in many different tabs so that the votes all show up on the Contributions list in as short a period of time as possible, then no.
Now you've said there are a number of these people, and remember that I've shown you that Ketsy is by no means an organised inclusionist--she never voted on a school deletion listing before Tuesday of this week.
So who are these organised inclusionists?
Where did she find all those schools? Don't you think it was from the Schoolwatch pages, set up and maintained by school inclusionists?
It could have been. On the other hand, it could have been that it would have been very difficult to miss those VfD listings on Tuesday and Wednesday. VfD was absolutely clogged. 50 is a lot of listings.
And given that Ketsy is new at this, isn't it at least plausible that she was responding in a robotic manner to what is very widely perceived as some particularly robotic deletion listings by a certain editor?
I suppose, but that would still make it an example of unthinking school inclusionist voting, wouldn't it?
Absolutely. Robotic responses to a robotic listings. Arguably all that they deserved. ANd she like this "How is Real" chap, she's an established Wikipedia regular who had never voted in a school deletion listing in her life before Tuesday. Dragon's teeth.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050520 06:04]:
Again, not all school inclusionists, but a certain subset of them. And I have backed them up.
With an example that two people (myself and one other) promptly pointed out matched our own editing patterns.
Do you reall think this is likely David?
Having done it ... yes.
If you think that all the people who are making boilerplate "keep" votes in incredibly short periods of time are not actually just mindlessly and sequentially voting "keep", but rather are people who read the articles, consider them carefully, then like to line up all the votes in many different tabs so that the votes all show up on the Contributions list in as short a period of time as possible, then no. But I think my assumption is far more reasonable and plausible than yours.
What, that someone edits VFD like I do?
I suspect the root of your assertion is that you can't really believe anyone would vote "keep" sincerely on almost all school articles. So when you see someone do so, you immediately assume bad faith editing on their part; and you won't be swayed from this explanation for what you see.
Me, I vote 'keep' on almost all of them because they're NPOV and verifiable (though in most cases they don't have an independent reference listed; as per my proposal on [[Wikiedpa:Schools]], I certainly wouldn't object to that as a very strong guideline). I really don't see that a 'keep' vote requires any greater justification, whatever someone's edit pattern.
- d.
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au
If you think that all the people who are making boilerplate "keep" votes
in
incredibly short periods of time are not actually just mindlessly and sequentially voting "keep", but rather are people who read the articles, consider them carefully, then like to line up all the votes in many different tabs so that the votes all show up on the Contributions list
in
as short a period of time as possible, then no. But I think my
assumption
is far more reasonable and plausible than yours.
What, that someone edits VFD like I do?
But they don't; your comments are not all identical, theirs are.
I suspect the root of your assertion is that you can't really believe anyone would vote "keep" sincerely on almost all school articles. So when you see someone do so, you immediately assume bad faith editing on their part; and you won't be swayed from this explanation for what you see.
Not true. I know there are people who believe *most* school articles should be kept. But the boilerplate votes in short periods of time which make no reference at all to the article or the VfD page are examples of something else, and in particular, when I see someone voting "keep, good stub" etc. on a completely useless stub.
Me, I vote 'keep' on almost all of them because they're NPOV and verifiable (though in most cases they don't have an independent reference listed; as per my proposal on [[Wikiedpa:Schools]], I certainly wouldn't object to that as a very strong guideline). I really don't see that a 'keep' vote requires any greater justification, whatever someone's edit pattern.
I understand your position; I've never objected to your votes, or your voting pattern.
Jay.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050520 06:37]:
Not true. I know there are people who believe *most* school articles should be kept. But the boilerplate votes in short periods of time which make no reference at all to the article or the VfD page are examples of something else, and in particular, when I see someone voting "keep, good stub" etc. on a completely useless stub.
Yeah, that I'd attribute to exasperation. Apparently-spammed nominations leading to apparently-spammed kep votes.
Of course, they might actually think it was a stub with a future. Are any of them working on the school stubs?
Rather than impugning their edits here, you could ask them nicely and see what they say. Might be interesting.
- d.
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au Yeah, that I'd attribute to exasperation. Apparently-spammed nominations leading to apparently-spammed kep votes.
Maybe we're all a little exasperated. Some strong policy about schools would be helpful; think the various suggestions being bandied about have any chance of becoming policy?
Of course, they might actually think it was a stub with a future. Are any of them working on the school stubs?
Some are; others just whine that all this voting is keeping them so busy they couldn't possibly try to expand any articles. And many of the articles are extremely difficult to expand beyond a paragraph or so, since there exists little information about them on the internet that is neutral and verifiable, much less noteworthy ("Its mascot is a chipmunk" - honestly!).
Rather than impugning their edits here, you could ask them nicely and see what they say. Might be interesting.
Ask them nicely what? If they're robo-voting, or to expand the stubs into something worthwhile?
Jay.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050520 07:23]:
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au
Yeah, that I'd attribute to exasperation. Apparently-spammed nominations leading to apparently-spammed kep votes.
Maybe we're all a little exasperated. Some strong policy about schools would be helpful; think the various suggestions being bandied about have any chance of becoming policy?
[[Wikipedia:Schools]] is actually resembling fruitful discussion. I hope no-one tries to take it to a vote until it's clear that's worked or failed. Premature votes are death to consensus.
Rather than impugning their edits here, you could ask them nicely and see what they say. Might be interesting.
Ask them nicely what? If they're robo-voting, or to expand the stubs into something worthwhile?
Ask why they're voting a particular way.
Possibly wait to ask about future votes, not the past few days; where the perception seems to have been of deliberate flooding of VFD with school votes to make a point (even though Neutrality says that wasn't his intention, and I believe him). Await a slightly calmer time.
- d.
JAY JG said:
and in particular, when I see someone voting "keep, good stub" etc. on a completely useless stub.
Oh, you mean someone who disagrees with you?
Me, I vote 'keep' on almost all of them because they're NPOV and verifiable (though in most cases they don't have an independent reference listed; as per my proposal on [[Wikiedpa:Schools]], I certainly wouldn't object to that as a very strong guideline). I really don't see that a 'keep' vote requires any greater justification, whatever someone's edit pattern.
I understand your position; I've never objected to your votes, or your voting pattern.
But it's pretty much the same as mine, and Ketsy's and this How is Real chap's.
Except of course that David and I had already voted on school deletions before Tuesday.
So you've got people who have been at it for some time who aren't mindless robotic posters, and you've got people who only responded robotically to robotic deletion listings.
This doesn't quite square the circle.
I have even (shock horror!) voted delete in rather a lot of school deletion listings in the past. I change my mind over time. Who knows, maybe next month I'll change my mind again and be a school deletionist.
Isn't that a bugger.
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com JAY JG said:
and in particular, when I see someone voting "keep, good stub" etc. on a completely useless stub.
Oh, you mean someone who disagrees with you?
No, Tony, and I find your strawman arguments tiresome; that's two in one discussion. Do you think you could possibly avoid them in the future, or do find their rhetorical power too irresistable?
So you've got people who have been at it for some time who aren't mindless robotic posters, and you've got people who only responded robotically to robotic deletion listings.
This doesn't quite square the circle.
Your apologetics are interesting examples of rationalization, but the bottom line remains that a group of school inclusionists, organized via a school inclusionist page, were robotically voting identical "keep" votes on large sets of school deletions.
Jay.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050521 00:10]:
Your apologetics are interesting examples of rationalization, but the bottom line remains that a group of school inclusionists, organized via a school inclusionist page, were robotically voting identical "keep" votes on large sets of school deletions.
And are you asserting this is regular practice? Or did people issue lots of "keep" votes in response to an unreasonable flood of nominations? Are the words "unclean hands" applicable to this protest?
- d.
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050521 00:10]:
Your apologetics are interesting examples of rationalization, but the bottom line remains that a group of school inclusionists, organized via
a
school inclusionist page, were robotically voting identical "keep" votes
on
large sets of school deletions.
And are you asserting this is regular practice? Or did people issue lots of "keep" votes in response to an unreasonable flood of nominations? Are the words "unclean hands" applicable to this protest?
As you well know, the history of organized school inclusionism long precedes this particular and very recent set of school VfDs, and even stooped to the level of sockpuppet voting.
Jay.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050521 02:34]:
And are you asserting this is regular practice? Or did people issue lots of "keep" votes in response to an unreasonable flood of nominations? Are the words "unclean hands" applicable to this protest?
As you well know, the history of organized school inclusionism long precedes this particular and very recent set of school VfDs, and even stooped to the level of sockpuppet voting.
So you don't mean of late, your evidence of robotic voting closely resembles the editing pattern of several of us you're arguing this point with, and you mean the one (it was one) person running a pile of sockpuppets you will now see absent.
So if Tony or I can be classed as "schools inclusionists", does that mean we're doing robotic voting with insinuations of sockpuppetry, are these other people you fingered as robo-voters even though the complained-of voting pattern resembles ours running sockpuppets, or what do you mean? Your stated concern is not staying constant in the course of the discussion.
You are notably failing to acknowledge that placing fifty schools at once on VFD could possibly be a provocative act that could arouse great attention, really upset people and in fact cause people to get involved, as Tony documents in detail. Do you see that it could be taken that way?
- d.
From: David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050521 02:34]:
As you well know, the history of organized school inclusionism long precedes this particular and very recent set of school VfDs, and even stooped to the level of sockpuppet voting.
So you don't mean of late, your evidence of robotic voting closely resembles the editing pattern of several of us you're arguing this point with, and you mean the one (it was one) person running a pile of sockpuppets you will now see absent.
It is a long-standing issue that continues to fester, though I appreciate your efforts in getting rid of that pile of sockpuppets.
So if Tony or I can be classed as "schools inclusionists", does that mean we're doing robotic voting with insinuations of sockpuppetry, are these other people you fingered as robo-voters even though the complained-of voting pattern resembles ours running sockpuppets, or what do you mean? Your stated concern is not staying constant in the course of the discussion.
The stated concern is still robotic "keep" voting by some editors who don't even bother to read the articles concerned, organized by school inclusionists (via "schoolwatch" pages). I stand by that interpretation of events, even though neither you nor Tony agree that the evidence I have given proves it.
You are notably failing to acknowledge that placing fifty schools at once on VFD could possibly be a provocative act that could arouse great attention, really upset people and in fact cause people to get involved, as Tony documents in detail. Do you see that it could be taken that way?
Yes, I acknowledge that it could upset people and be seen as a provocative act. I do note that Neutrality's reasons for VfD nomination were not identical in every case, and often referred to specific issues with the articles themselves, unlike many of the votes made in response. And I also note again that organized school inclusionism started long before this very recent incident.
That said, I'm wary of letting the list bog down in interminable debates, as it so often does, and in any event I don't particularly enjoy being so publically at odds with people that I respect. Perhaps you can respond with a summation/last word, and then we can take this to private e-mail.
Jay.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050521 05:35]:
That said, I'm wary of letting the list bog down in interminable debates, as it so often does, and in any event I don't particularly enjoy being so publically at odds with people that I respect. Perhaps you can respond with a summation/last word, and then we can take this to private e-mail.
My last email was unduly snarky and somewhat querulous, and I do apologise to you and to the list.
Hopefully the discussion at [[Wikipedia:Schools]] will reach something everyone can live with. It seems to be generating useful compromise ideas nicely and discussing the actual issues a bit. I just really really really don't want a vote on anything there until it's definitely cooked.
- d.
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com JAY JG said:
and in particular, when I see someone voting "keep, good stub" etc. on a completely useless stub.
Oh, you mean someone who disagrees with you?
No, Tony, and I find your strawman arguments tiresome; that's two in one discussion.
I seriously question whether you are aware of the difference between a "straw man" argument and an accurate description of my interpretation of your stance. It seems to me that in the above you are saying that you know that someone else shares your perception of what is and what is not a good stub, and as a consequence it follows that it is a fact, and not solely your opinion, that this person is voting "keep, good stub" on an indisputably useless stub.
Either that or you think that the other person's opinion of what constitutes a good stub doesn't matter because you are the arbiter. I think we can assume that this is not your opinion, otherwise you wouldn't see any point in discussion.
Your apologetics are interesting examples of rationalization, but the bottom line remains that a group of school inclusionists, organized via a school inclusionist page, were robotically voting identical "keep" votes on large sets of school deletions.
See my earlier postings in which I analyze the basis for this claim.
Some data points to get along with. Two users that I looked at, at random today: User: Dozenist
First edit January, not many edits before this week when he started editing some dentistry articles in earnest. Came to VfD on 13th (last Friday) when he made a pertinent comment about the VfD for "Waterfluoridation quotes". First ever school VfD votes: today.
User: No Account
First ever edit on Wikipedia 16th, this Monday. Around 70 article edits, edited every day except Wednesday. First schools VfD vote today. 33 votes in less than 25 minutes. Without looking at Wikipedia, can you tell which one of them consistently votes keep and which one of them consistently voted delete?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Tony Sidaway wrote: [snip]
Some data points to get along with. Two users that I looked at, at random today: User: Dozenist
First edit January, not many edits before this week when he started editing some dentistry articles in earnest. Came to VfD on 13th (last Friday) when he made a pertinent comment about the VfD for "Waterfluoridation quotes". First ever school VfD votes: today.
User: No Account
First ever edit on Wikipedia 16th, this Monday. Around 70 article edits, edited every day except Wednesday. First schools VfD vote today. 33 votes in less than 25 minutes. Without looking at Wikipedia, can you tell which one of them consistently votes keep and which one of them consistently voted delete?
I'll take a wild guess and say Dozenist votes delete, No Account (evil, evil! username) votes keep.
Please advise what the actual answer is.
- -- Alphax GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis
Alphax said:
I'll take a wild guess and say Dozenist votes delete, No Account (evil, evil! username) votes keep.
Please advise what the actual answer is.
You can check for yourself. I think my point is clear--some quite serious allegations have been made but when investigated prove to be at the very least somewhat exaggerated. It seems that a concerted push to deleted school articles by robotically listing more than 50 of them over a three-day period has had the effect of causing previously uncommitted people, on both sides of the issue, to respond in a manner that looks, from the outside at least, to be just as robotic and unthinking as the deletion listings appeared to have been.
David Gerard said:
Assuming she edits like me (load a pile of tabs, read and vote) I'd expect to see just that result.
Actually it's possible. When I do VfD votes I always have today's listings in one tab and use it to spawn other tabs for the article and the VfD edit. On some runs in my history over the past couple of days in response to Neutrality's deletion listings I've done about one a minute. I never paste a vote, always compose a comment relevant to the article, and always use preview. I always check external links in the article, as well as hovering over internal bluelinks to make sure they're valid. Sometimes I line up a few article tabs in advance, but usually I don't because it would be easy to get confused. I always vote delete on substubs, and always go back a few hours later to see if they've been fixed, to change my vote if they have. Some of my votes are many minutes apart, but then I sometimes get hung up for a while looking at the varsity cheerleaders and playing the goofy videos.
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com JAY JG said:
You obviously do; you've even voted to delete some schools.
Haven't we all?
Nope.
The organized inclusionists do not read the article, nor do they believe they should have to; for them, including all school articles is a matter of "principle", usually of the "Wikipedia is not paper" and/or "schools are intrinsically notable" sort.
Well that's a very serious charge. You're accusing some unnamed people of making bogus votes on VfD--copy-pasted and without looking at the article in question. Do you have some evidence to support this?
"Very serious charge"? Get real, this is a Wikipedia mail-list. As for evidence, here's one example of an editor who took some valuable time out of editing Pokemon related articles to make 17 identical keep votes on schools in 9 minutes, and soon after another 10 identical keep votes in 4 minutes: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=K... Several times she was able to get in 3 keep votes a minute. I envy her her internet connection; I couldn't have even gotten to all those VfD pages in that time, much less read the related article, edited, voted, saved, and returned.
Well that's Ketsy, bless her socks. I first bumped into her the other day when I happened to revert one of her edits on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexuality and she went to talk. Nobody's roboposter.
Funny thing is, Ketsy's *first* Vfd vote against a schools listing was just two days ago, and she has been editing since February and participating occasionally on VfD since early March.
So I don't think you can class her as one of these "organized inclusionists".
Try again.
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com Well that's Ketsy, bless her socks. I first bumped into her the other day when I happened to revert one of her edits on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexuality and she went to talk. Nobody's roboposter.
Funny thing is, Ketsy's *first* Vfd vote against a schools listing was just two days ago, and she has been editing since February and participating occasionally on VfD since early March.
So I don't think you can class her as one of these "organized inclusionists".
She's very organized now.
Jay.
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com Well that's Ketsy, bless her socks. I first bumped into her the other day when I happened to revert one of her edits on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexuality and she went to talk. Nobody's roboposter.
Funny thing is, Ketsy's *first* Vfd vote against a schools listing was just two days ago, and she has been editing since February and participating occasionally on VfD since early March.
So I don't think you can class her as one of these "organized inclusionists".
She's very organized now.
Dragon's teeth.
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
Try again.
How about this [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=H...] Contribution list which includes 35 identical "keep" votes in 30 minutes; another example of careful consideration of each school article, followed by lined-up Firefox tabs and rapid-fire voting? And don't forget, these articles are in different locations and on different subpages of the VfD page; these people are clearly going through one of the two "Schoolwatch" pages which have been set up.
Do you need another example?
Jay.
JAY JG said:
From: "Tony Sidaway" minorityreport@bluebottle.com
Try again.
How about this [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=H... Contribution list which includes 35 identical "keep" votes in 30 minutes; another example of careful consideration of each school article, followed by lined-up Firefox tabs and rapid-fire voting? And don't forget, these articles are in different locations and on different subpages of the VfD page; these people are clearly going through one of the two "Schoolwatch" pages which have been set up.
Absolutely, no question of it, they're using Schoolwatch. This guy's edits are sometimes stretched out, sometimes close together, just like mine. I have no reason to believe that he's not doing things exactly as I do, even down to gawping at cheerleader.
He's also responding to comments. This is no robotic poster, but a person discussing and voting on deletion listings.
He also seems to edit a fair bit on school-related articles. Isn't he entitled to input on school deletion listings?
And this guy has been editing Wikipedia as long as I have and, like the other person you gave as an example of an "organised inclusionist", he didn't vote on a schools VfD until Tuesday of this week--clearly in response to Neutrality's listing of more than 50 schools for deletion.
I'm beginning to detect a common thread here. Another dragon tooth.
Please do list more of these alleged "organised inclusionists". They're proving most entertaining!
JAY JG said:
The reason it is hard to delete school articles is two-fold;
- Wikipedia deletion rules are stacked in favour of inclusion; at
least two-thirds of voters (and often more) must vote to delete for it to happen, and votes to re-direct are interpreted as "keep", though the obvious intent is that the article should not stand on its own.
When I close, I usually go for 75-80%, depends how confident I am about the presence of socks and the like.
- School inclusionists are now organized, and have set up a
"Schoolwatch" page to ensure that all schools are kept. These people vote to keep every single school, usually with cut and paste comments. Thus a group of a dozen or so inclusionists can easily force Wikipedia to keep every single school article, no matter how silly, uninformative, trivial or unverifiable they are. And, in fact, that's exactly what they do. However, whether these dozen people represent the consensus of Wikipedia is another question.
I think the group of inclusionists you describe may well exist. I think it is more than likely that, like me, they have been influenced by a perception that there exists a campaign to delete school articles and to use VfD, as David Gerard has put it, or the purpose of quality control. In my case the perception arose from the actions following the closing of an article on Mahajana School with a keep decision. The school was inexplicably redirected to the Erode article and then speedy deleted. It was restored following a long discussion on votes for undeletion, but then relisted for deletion again very soon after.
More recently, the robotic listing for deletion of over 50 schools in the space of 3 days did nothing to dispel my impression that a deletion campaign was under way. I can find no other explanation for carrying out such a procedure on that timescale.
That kind of activity does tend to attract attention. The kind of people who are most likely to do something about it rather than just shrug it off tend to be those who, like me, don't like what they see happening. It may also cause some people, like me, to rethink their attitude towards deletion. It tends to radicalize people.
So yes, there's something in what you say. But there is also some truth to the old story about sowing dragon's teeth.
On 5/18/05, Tony Sidaway minorityreport@bluebottle.com wrote:
This is amusing because the direction to avoid original research is often taken merely as advice and only used as a rule when there is conflict
That is not my understanding. "No original research" is official policy.
Sure enough, but it's routinely ignored. I cited example of places where you'll not only find it ignored but we'd have lesser articles as a result.
'No original research' is a useful idea but it's not a crowing achievement like NPOV, we'd be fools to follow it blindly, and I'm glad to see that we do not. Often the cost of finding a citation (if indeed one is available) for a particular point which is obvious to anyone who has studied the references, is just too great. As time goes on we will find more and more things where the material in the various wikiprojects is some of the highest quality material available, and we would have to ask ourselves, must we cite inferior inferior information because of a silly policy when no one disputes what we would like to provide?
(not that no-orignal-research is silly, but rather almost any policy applied blindly can be silly)
From: Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com 'No original research' is a useful idea but it's not a crowing achievement like NPOV, we'd be fools to follow it blindly, and I'm glad to see that we do not. Often the cost of finding a citation (if indeed one is available) for a particular point which is obvious to anyone who has studied the references, is just too great.
In my experience, it is far more often ignored because an editor wants to draw some original conclusions about something, and is unaware of the policy, unable to comprehend it, or simply doesn't care. Currently the risk that Wikipedia will be damaged by "blindly following" the NOR policy is far less than the risk that it will be damaged by *not* following it.
Jay.
On 5/18/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
In my experience, it is far more often ignored because an editor wants to draw some original conclusions about something, and is unaware of the policy, unable to comprehend it, or simply doesn't care. Currently the risk that Wikipedia will be damaged by "blindly following" the NOR policy is far less than the risk that it will be damaged by *not* following it.
We have entire areas of study which would be exceptionally difficult to document if we were strictly adhering to a no original research policy. For example our articles on Free Software related subject often contain information sourced from mailing lists and form the editors experience, sources which would not normally be acceptable under the normal application of the original research standard.
Deciding what may be accepted as research is as difficult a problem as determine what is notable.
Gregory Maxwell (gmaxwell@gmail.com) [050519 14:43]:
On 5/18/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
In my experience, it is far more often ignored because an editor wants to draw some original conclusions about something, and is unaware of the policy, unable to comprehend it, or simply doesn't care. Currently the risk that Wikipedia will be damaged by "blindly following" the NOR policy is far less than the risk that it will be damaged by *not* following it.
We have entire areas of study which would be exceptionally difficult to document if we were strictly adhering to a no original research policy. For example our articles on Free Software related subject often contain information sourced from mailing lists and form the editors experience, sources which would not normally be acceptable under the normal application of the original research standard.
For the subject, mailing list posts are probably entirely appropriate reference material. Check [[X Window System]], particularly the "X.Org and XFree86" section - you can be sure I'd have had lynch mobs after me if I hadn't referenced clause by clause.
Deciding what may be accepted as research is as difficult a problem as determine what is notable.
That's why we use a thing called "editorial judgement." Not everything can be Taylorised.
I really don't see any reason to let people get away with "referencing is haaaaard." It's work - I've written three-paragraph articles then had to hunt around for references so people can immediately see I'm not just making it up off the top of my head - but so are a lot of worthwhile things.
As [[WP:CITE]] puts it: "This applies even when the information is currently undisputed - even if there is no dispute right now, someone might come along in five years and want to dispute, verify, or learn more about a topic."
As [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]] (that thing I keep citing on VFD) puts it: "Fact checking is time consuming, economically costly, and not particularly rewarding. It is unfair to make later editors dig for sources."
When people come onto IRC saying "my article was deleted!" my standard advice is: write three decent paragraphs with two references and it'll stay. In fact, three paras, two refs and standard formatting will gladden the heart of whatever pool soul encounters it on Special:Newpages patrol.
Doing it right is *not that hard*, and I find all arguments I've seen to the contrary utterly unconvincing.
- d.
Gregory Maxwell said:
For example our articles on Free Software related subject often contain information sourced from mailing lists and form the editors experience, sources which would not normally be acceptable under the normal application of the original research standard.
"Personal experience" isn't verifiable. Such sources must be disregarded. If someone says "Linus in 1993 contemplated starting again, abandoning the GPL" and cites a personal conversation, then delete it. If he can cite a mailing list that is archived on a public server, I'd cite that and check with Torvalds himself if there was any question over authenticity. Mailing list archives can be, but are not always, for good old fashioned reasons of checking provenance, acceptable sources (at the risk of stirring up that whole debate again.)
From: Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com On 5/18/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
In my experience, it is far more often ignored because an editor wants
to
draw some original conclusions about something, and is unaware of the policy, unable to comprehend it, or simply doesn't care. Currently the
risk
that Wikipedia will be damaged by "blindly following" the NOR policy is
far
less than the risk that it will be damaged by *not* following it.
We have entire areas of study which would be exceptionally difficult to document if we were strictly adhering to a no original research policy. For example our articles on Free Software related subject often contain information sourced from mailing lists and form the editors experience, sources which would not normally be acceptable under the normal application of the original research standard.
Deciding what may be accepted as research is as difficult a problem as determine what is notable.
That may be true for certain cutting edge topics which are not well documented. But in other areas (e.g. religion, politics, current world conflicts, controversial people, etc.) the more typical problem is that people insist on inserting their own analysis.
Jay.
On 5/19/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
We have entire areas of study which would be exceptionally difficult to document if we were strictly adhering to a no original research policy. For example our articles on Free Software related subject often contain information sourced from mailing lists and form the editors experience, sources which would not normally be acceptable under the normal application of the original research standard.
Deciding what may be accepted as research is as difficult a problem as determine what is notable.
That may be true for certain cutting edge topics which are not well documented. But in other areas (e.g. religion, politics, current world conflicts, controversial people, etc.) the more typical problem is that people insist on inserting their own analysis.
Right, and as I said, the no-original-research rule mostly gets applied in the case of conflict. I wasn't lamenting the current conditions, just pointing out that it's silly for us to propose a set of inclusion criteria that is ultimately limited by no-original-research.
Unlike NPOV I don't consider no-original-research to be a core (thus non-negotiable) principal of the project, rather it's just a useful rule.
Once wikipedia has dominated the known universe and has become the primary repository for all human knowledge it may become the case that the only way to get good peer review is to publish in wikipedia. It is already the case that I'd trust content vetted in wikipedia over some sources (notably the non peer-reviewed sort). I expect that we'll revise our procedures to address this when the time comes.
Speaking of research in wikipedia, it would be useful if there were a wiki-interviews project... Wiki style editing used to develop questions to be asked of interviewees, answered collected and maintained as a source. The material could then be cited in wikipedia articles. This may be a handy way to reduce the need to original research by providing an easy way to obtain targeted views by acceptable experts.
Gregory Maxwell said:
Unlike NPOV I don't consider no-original-research to be a core (thus non-negotiable) principal of the project, rather it's just a useful rule.
I think NPOV has been emphasized more, but I don't think it's correct to imply that "No original research" (or any other official policy) is negotiable.
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Unlike NPOV I don't consider no-original-research to be a core (thus non-negotiable) principal of the project, rather it's just a useful rule.
Once wikipedia has dominated the known universe and has become the primary repository for all human knowledge it may become the case that the only way to get good peer review is to publish in wikipedia. It is already the case that I'd trust content vetted in wikipedia over some sources (notably the non peer-reviewed sort). I expect that we'll revise our procedures to address this when the time comes.
I'd disagree with that view---if Wikipedia is to be an *encyclopedia* by any reasonable definition of that term, it has to be a compendium of existing human knowledge, not a research journal publishing novel claims. I'm not opposed to a Wikimedia Foundation project that would include original research, but I think it would be problematic to include it as part of an encyclopedia. Perhaps eventually it would become a test of important research that it makes it into Wikipedia, but this would be after it's presumably published and discussed elsewhere; it shouldn't make its first appearance in an encyclopedia article, if this is to actually be an encyclopedia.
-Mark
Gregory Maxwell said:
Often the cost of finding a citation (if indeed one is available) for a particular point which is obvious to anyone who has studied the references, is just too great. As time goes on we will find more and more things where the material in the various wikiprojects is some of the highest quality material available, and we would have to ask ourselves, must we cite inferior information because of a silly policy when no one disputes what we would like to provide?
I'm sure we could both find examples where we'd both agree that a citation was either unnecessary or not worth compiling. I suspect that any meaningful examples would be rather contrived. Someone objected to the use of the word "evolved" in the article "centipede":
"...and jaw-like mandibles and other mouthparts that [[evolution|evolved]] from modified appendages." He edited it with the summary "no scientific evidence of evolution", removing this part: "and other mouthparts that [[evolution|evolved]] from modified appendages" I peremptorily reverted with the summary "this is not fundypedia", because diversification and specialization of such organs in arthropods has been well established for over a century. Should we cite down to this level? I think not, but mainly because we can link internally. The word "evolved" is linked to "evolution" and that article cites Darwin and Mayr, who (although the latter citation would probably make at least one acquaintance, an embryologist, wince and mutter about panadaptationism) seem to be adequate, as well as quite a lot of online resources. Thus scientific ideas can be presented in a Wiki without the need to annotate every sentence. In any case the interested reader can go to the Tree of Life project's entry on Chilopoda (an external link in the Centipede article) and find a host of references, including exhaustive examinations of the morphology, philogeny and evolution of centipedes, which are a particular example of diversification about the arthropod's characteristic modular bauplan of repeated segments whose characteristics, research strongly suggests, are controlled by gene expression.