No, not for any of the stuff I'm getting into fights about lately, like cliques and BADSITES. But for one of its article deletions.
You see, I was working on edits to one of my personal websites, in this case one about e-mail formatting and related technical and cultural issues ( http://mailformat.dan.info/ ). I decided, in the course of talking about forwarded messages, to refer to the concept of "glurge", which is the sort of sickeningly-sweet motivational stuff (Norman Vincent Peale - ish) that gets regularly forwarded around the net. Usually when I do something like that, I like to stick in an external link to some place that describes what I'm talking about, and lately Wikipedia is almost always my first choice to try to find one. Unfortunately, it turns out that the Wikipedia article on "glurge" has been deleted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Glurge
Thus, I had to go to Snopes instead to find a link to the concept.
Wikipedia is often at its best as a place to find balanced, useful references about a variety of subcultural phenomena, Internet memes, and the like. Why should we cut off our nose by deleting them?
On 6/9/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
No, not for any of the stuff I'm getting into fights about lately, like cliques and BADSITES. But for one of its article deletions.
You see, I was working on edits to one of my personal websites, in this case one about e-mail formatting and related technical and cultural issues ( http://mailformat.dan.info/ ). I decided, in the course of talking about forwarded messages, to refer to the concept of "glurge", which is the sort of sickeningly-sweet motivational stuff (Norman Vincent Peale - ish) that gets regularly forwarded around the net. Usually when I do something like that, I like to stick in an external link to some place that describes what I'm talking about, and lately Wikipedia is almost always my first choice to try to find one. Unfortunately, it turns out that the Wikipedia article on "glurge" has been deleted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Glurge
Thus, I had to go to Snopes instead to find a link to the concept.
Wikipedia is often at its best as a place to find balanced, useful references about a variety of subcultural phenomena, Internet memes, and the like. Why should we cut off our nose by deleting them?
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have sources readily available on Google (I just select a random phrase from the quote, plug it in, and the search results nearly always yield something useful).
Likewise, http://www.google.com/search?q=Glurge yields more than enough sources on the phrase's etymology (though that's more for Wiktionary) and background. Is it really that hard to Google something?
Johnleemk
dunno take it to deletion review. I'm a sucker but wouldn't have passed you. Next time just find all the guys you edit with to comment with you. recreate under something in brackets post main text - it will def get prod and ur fine 4 a week or two!
On 09/06/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/9/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
No, not for any of the stuff I'm getting into fights about lately, like cliques and BADSITES. But for one of its article deletions.
You see, I was working on edits to one of my personal websites, in this case one about e-mail formatting and related technical and cultural issues ( http://mailformat.dan.info/ ). I decided, in the course of talking about forwarded messages, to refer to the concept of "glurge", which is the sort of sickeningly-sweet motivational stuff (Norman Vincent Peale - ish) that gets regularly forwarded around the net. Usually when I do something like that, I like to stick in an external link to some place that describes what I'm talking about, and lately Wikipedia is almost always my first choice to try to find one. Unfortunately, it turns out that the Wikipedia article on "glurge" has been deleted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Glurge
Thus, I had to go to Snopes instead to find a link to the concept.
Wikipedia is often at its best as a place to find balanced, useful references about a variety of subcultural phenomena, Internet memes, and the like. Why should we cut off our nose by deleting them?
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have sources readily available on Google (I just select a random phrase from the quote, plug it in, and the search results nearly always yield something useful).
Likewise, http://www.google.com/search?q=Glurge yields more than enough sources on the phrase's etymology (though that's more for Wiktionary) and background. Is it really that hard to Google something?
Johnleemk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
G'day Michael,
dunno take it to deletion review. I'm a sucker but wouldn't have passed you. Next time just find all the guys you edit with to comment with you. recreate under something in brackets post main text - it will def get prod and ur fine 4 a week or two!
That's amazing. I'm pretty sure the above was written in English, or a comprehensible variant, or at least most of the words correspond to words that do exist in the English lexicon, however, I am unable to decipher your meaning.
I suspect my mind is simply not functioning properly after a hard day's work. Would you mind rephrasing your message in words of one syllable or fewer?
Cheers,
On Jun 9, 2007, at 9:52 AM, John Lee wrote:
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have sources readily available on Google (I just select a random phrase from the quote, plug it in, and the search results nearly always yield something useful).
Likewise, http://www.google.com/search?q=Glurge yields more than enough sources on the phrase's etymology (though that's more for Wiktionary) and background. Is it really that hard to Google something?
Though in this case I have trouble finding many sources that meet stringent standards of reliability. 644 unique appearances on Google, though.
For me, this points to another problem with stringent standards of reliability. Yeah, we only have 644 independent sources on Google, none of which may be the most reliable of things. But we're dealing here with a neologism, and any source that uses the word, regardless of some ontological notion of reliability, is giving us significant information. Of course, the most stringent NOR monkeys will still cry foul over this.
This is, for me, the really disheartening thing about the deletion debate. If people had approached the subject as reasonable, thinking editors there would be a really interesting discussion of how best to source this article. But people approach it as robots and we get "Delete, neologism."
-Phil
Dunno i actually struck 251 - myspace -blog -answers. neologism have a frame of 40,000 i think. but if the guy can find 50 notable newspapers (I coundn't) would be cool. I'd pass his on the grounds that it could be merged. (Wikipedia is not a place for neologism but I think its so boom it works.)
On 09/06/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Jun 9, 2007, at 9:52 AM, John Lee wrote:
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have sources readily available on Google (I just select a random phrase from the quote, plug it in, and the search results nearly always yield something useful).
Likewise, http://www.google.com/search?q=Glurge yields more than enough sources on the phrase's etymology (though that's more for Wiktionary) and background. Is it really that hard to Google something?
Though in this case I have trouble finding many sources that meet stringent standards of reliability. 644 unique appearances on Google, though.
For me, this points to another problem with stringent standards of reliability. Yeah, we only have 644 independent sources on Google, none of which may be the most reliable of things. But we're dealing here with a neologism, and any source that uses the word, regardless of some ontological notion of reliability, is giving us significant information. Of course, the most stringent NOR monkeys will still cry foul over this.
This is, for me, the really disheartening thing about the deletion debate. If people had approached the subject as reasonable, thinking editors there would be a really interesting discussion of how best to source this article. But people approach it as robots and we get "Delete, neologism."
-Phil _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Today's example is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Southampton, Bill Wakeham. Minimal article, but it did say he was V-C. Prodded--by someone from the UK. Maybe it will be on AfD tomorrow. DGG
Proddedportted by me, On 6/9/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
Dunno i actually struck 251 - myspace -blog -answers. neologism have a frame of 40,000 i think. but if the guy can find 50 notable newspapers (I coundn't) would be cool. I'd pass his on the grounds that it could be merged. (Wikipedia is not a place for neologism but I think its so boom it works.)
On 09/06/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Jun 9, 2007, at 9:52 AM, John Lee wrote:
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have sources readily available on Google (I just select a random phrase from the quote, plug it in, and the search results nearly always yield something useful).
Likewise, http://www.google.com/search?q=Glurge yields more than enough sources on the phrase's etymology (though that's more for Wiktionary) and background. Is it really that hard to Google something?
Though in this case I have trouble finding many sources that meet stringent standards of reliability. 644 unique appearances on Google, though.
For me, this points to another problem with stringent standards of reliability. Yeah, we only have 644 independent sources on Google, none of which may be the most reliable of things. But we're dealing here with a neologism, and any source that uses the word, regardless of some ontological notion of reliability, is giving us significant information. Of course, the most stringent NOR monkeys will still cry foul over this.
This is, for me, the really disheartening thing about the deletion debate. If people had approached the subject as reasonable, thinking editors there would be a really interesting discussion of how best to source this article. But people approach it as robots and we get "Delete, neologism."
-Phil _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/10/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Today's example is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Southampton, Bill Wakeham. Minimal article, but it did say he was V-C. Prodded--by someone from the UK. Maybe it will be on AfD tomorrow. DGG
Well, a look at the similar position for University of Maryland College Park shows that the only substantial articles are on a Civil War general and on Mote, who not surprisingly is the incumbent. There is a common assumption that anyone in a titled position is therefore notable, but the truth is that most of these people are, historically, names on a list.
On 10/06/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Today's example is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Southampton, Bill Wakeham. Minimal article, but it did say he was V-C. Prodded--by someone from the UK. Maybe it will be on AfD tomorrow. DGG
Well, a look at the similar position for University of Maryland College Park shows that the only substantial articles are on a Civil War general and on Mote, who not surprisingly is the incumbent. There is a common assumption that anyone in a titled position is therefore notable, but the truth is that most of these people are, historically, names on a list.
Quick contextual clarification: the VC is the administrative head of the university, traditionally a senior academic position. The *Chancellor* is the meaningless titular position...
On 6/10/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Quick contextual clarification: the VC is the administrative head of the university, traditionally a senior academic position. The *Chancellor* is the meaningless titular position...
In the USA the president or chancellor is equivalent to the British VC. But it doesn't really matter, as on either side of the Atlantic most of the people serve their time and pass into relative obscurity.
On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 03:50:14 -0400, "David Goodman" dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Today's example is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Southampton, Bill Wakeham. Minimal article, but it did say he was V-C. Prodded--by someone from the UK. Maybe it will be on AfD tomorrow. DGG
Being V-C does not mean that non-trivial independent sources necessarily exist.
/me checks for [[Gordon Higginson]], who was V-C when I was at Soton. Nope. Professor Sir Gordon Higginson, DL, FREng, lacks an article. Ho hum.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 03:50:14 -0400, "David Goodman" dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Today's example is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Southampton, Bill Wakeham. Minimal article, but it did say he was V-C. Prodded--by someone from the UK. Maybe it will be on AfD tomorrow. DGG
Being V-C does not mean that non-trivial independent sources necessarily exist.
/me checks for [[Gordon Higginson]], who was V-C when I was at Soton. Nope. Professor Sir Gordon Higginson, DL, FREng, lacks an article. Ho hum.
Who's Who is a pretty good basis for an article, I find, for VCs or people of that level - use Who Was Who if they're dead, and chances are there's a Times or Telegraph obituary. It's not multiple independent sources, but it gives a very good indicator of where you should be looking for them.
On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 12:12:30PM +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jun 2007 03:50:14 -0400, "David Goodman" dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Today's example is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Southampton, Bill Wakeham. Minimal article, but it did say he was V-C. Prodded--by someone from the UK. Maybe it will be on AfD tomorrow. DGG
Being V-C does not mean that non-trivial independent sources necessarily exist.
/me checks for [[Gordon Higginson]], who was V-C when I was at Soton. Nope. Professor Sir Gordon Higginson, DL, FREng, lacks an article. Ho hum.
He probably should have one. By any guideline I can think of, WP covers scientists and academics poorly. We do not have articles on all Fellows of the Royal Society, or all Fellows of the Australian Academy of Sciences. Just check out these memberships that clearly are notable and we are missing a whole lot of people. There is work to be done. I doubt that any VC does not have non-trivial independent sources. Most would have them before they become VCs. There is a serious misbalance in WP biographies.
Brian.
Guy (JzG)
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:27:17 +1000, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
He probably should have one.
He has now, but it is a poor stub of a thing.
Guy (JzG)
On 6/9/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Jun 9, 2007, at 9:52 AM, John Lee wrote:
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have sources readily available on Google (I just select a random phrase from the quote, plug it in, and the search results nearly always yield something useful).
Likewise, http://www.google.com/search?q=Glurge yields more than enough sources on the phrase's etymology (though that's more for Wiktionary) and background. Is it really that hard to Google something?
Though in this case I have trouble finding many sources that meet stringent standards of reliability. 644 unique appearances on Google, though.
For me, this points to another problem with stringent standards of reliability. Yeah, we only have 644 independent sources on Google, none of which may be the most reliable of things. But we're dealing here with a neologism, and any source that uses the word, regardless of some ontological notion of reliability, is giving us significant information. Of course, the most stringent NOR monkeys will still cry foul over this.
This is, for me, the really disheartening thing about the deletion debate. If people had approached the subject as reasonable, thinking editors there would be a really interesting discussion of how best to source this article. But people approach it as robots and we get "Delete, neologism."
Stringent standards, eh? Deciding the reliability of sources is far from an objective thing, but I think one would have to be insane to reject all the sources that Google search turns up. wiseGeek, for example, seems decent enough. It's a shame that wordSpy seems to be self-published, but it does cite some real reliable sources that we could examine (unfortunately, that would require work in meatspace; Googling those sources turned up zilch).
In any event, there's sufficient evidence that this is a notable neologism with real sources about it out there; even if there are none that we can cite [[m:immediatism|immediately]], it's enough to keep the article in my book. I'm no inclusionist, and I love sources as much as the next guy, but I hate Taylorisation, and this seems to be a classic case of robotic application of the rules to wedge cases.
Johnleemk
On 6/9/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/9/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Jun 9, 2007, at 9:52 AM, John Lee wrote:
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have sources readily available on Google (I just select a random phrase from the quote, plug it in, and the search results nearly always yield something useful).
Likewise, http://www.google.com/search?q=Glurge yields more than enough sources on the phrase's etymology (though that's more for Wiktionary) and background. Is it really that hard to Google something?
Though in this case I have trouble finding many sources that meet stringent standards of reliability. 644 unique appearances on Google, though.
For me, this points to another problem with stringent standards of reliability. Yeah, we only have 644 independent sources on Google, none of which may be the most reliable of things. But we're dealing here with a neologism, and any source that uses the word, regardless of some ontological notion of reliability, is giving us significant information. Of course, the most stringent NOR monkeys will still cry foul over this.
This is, for me, the really disheartening thing about the deletion debate. If people had approached the subject as reasonable, thinking editors there would be a really interesting discussion of how best to source this article. But people approach it as robots and we get "Delete, neologism."
Stringent standards, eh? Deciding the reliability of sources is far from an objective thing, but I think one would have to be insane to reject all the sources that Google search turns up. wiseGeek, for example, seems decent enough. It's a shame that wordSpy seems to be self-published, but it does cite some real reliable sources that we could examine (unfortunately, that would require work in meatspace; Googling those sources turned up zilch).
In any event, there's sufficient evidence that this is a notable neologism with real sources about it out there; even if there are none that we can cite [[m:immediatism|immediately]], it's enough to keep the article in my book. I'm no inclusionist, and I love sources as much as the next guy, but I hate Taylorisation, and this seems to be a classic case of robotic application of the rules to wedge cases.
Johnleemk _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Amen to that. Wikipedia is supposed to evolve. To delete something that doesn't have sources, one is supposed to show they don't exist or havent been added despite attempts to contact interested parties.
On 6/9/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
This is, for me, the really disheartening thing about the deletion debate. If people had approached the subject as reasonable, thinking editors there would be a really interesting discussion of how best to source this article. But people approach it as robots and we get "Delete, neologism."
Interesting thought there; perhaps it would be much better if we had standards for minimum article quality but made efforts to help articles pass them, rather than trying to fail them.
-Matt
All tags have a "help to improve this article" apart from Speedy. it is nut cruching if you have improved an article and it was deleted. There isn't a simple answer to xfd but it works with articles written by just a couple of authors. Could there be a new 30 day PROD that puts articles under review and de-robot them (so that they dont pop up in search lists) definately yes.
On 10/06/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/9/07, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
This is, for me, the really disheartening thing about the deletion debate. If people had approached the subject as reasonable, thinking editors there would be a really interesting discussion of how best to source this article. But people approach it as robots and we get "Delete, neologism."
Interesting thought there; perhaps it would be much better if we had standards for minimum article quality but made efforts to help articles pass them, rather than trying to fail them.
-Matt
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/10/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
All tags have a "help to improve this article" apart from Speedy. it is nut cruching if you have improved an article and it was deleted. There isn't a simple answer to xfd but it works with articles written by just a couple of authors. Could there be a new 30 day PROD that puts articles under review and de-robot them (so that they dont pop up in search lists) definately yes.
I am willing to bet this would be about as successful in saving articles from deletion as [[Wikipedia:Peer review]] is in improving articles to featured standard. PR has become nothing more than a procedural step on the road to featured status; such a deletion process would be nothing more than a procedural step on the road to deletion.
Simply put, people are not going to volunteer to do jobs that don't have much of a visible end result. An action that results in an article being kept is effectively keeping the status quo; hardly glamorous. Debating an article's deletion or featuring however is much more sexy, even if less productive.
There are a few brave souls who do the job of trawling through our deletion pages and peer review page looking for articles to improve; sadly they are far outnumbered by those who prefer to focus on disputing citation styles for FA and notability for xfD/PROD.
Johnleemk
On 6/10/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting thought there; perhaps it would be much better if we had standards for minimum article quality but made efforts to help articles pass them, rather than trying to fail them.
I'm sorry, but I think just the opposite. If you cannot put in at least one sentence which gives a reason why the article should be included, you shouldn't put it in and expect someone else to dig up that reason for you. That seems to be the primary reason we have to have an AfD process: too many people write articles on stuff that they think is self-evidently notable. Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
If you have been nominating, for deletion, articles which you believe could (or even should) be improved rather than deleted, please cease and desist right now.
—C.W.
Except that since there seem to be more articles requiring improvement than there are people willing or able to devote time to improving them, the question is not "would we want the article if it were improved?", but "do we think that the article in its current state is beneficial to the quality of the encyclopedia?".
David
On 10/06/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
If you have been nominating, for deletion, articles which you believe could (or even should) be improved rather than deleted, please cease and desist right now.
—C.W.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/10/07, David Mestel david.mestel@gmail.com wrote:
Except that since there seem to be more articles requiring improvement than there are people willing or able to devote time to improving them, the question is not "would we want the article if it were improved?", but "do we think that the article in its current state is beneficial to the quality of the encyclopedia?".
I'd say the key question is closer to "do we think that the article in its current state is beneficial to the job of writing an encyclopedia". Wikipedia is, after all, a continual work in progress.
On 10/06/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
If you have been nominating, for deletion, articles which you believe could (or even should) be improved rather than deleted, please cease and desist right now.
—C.W.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
That's true...roll on stable versions!
David
On 10/06/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/10/07, David Mestel david.mestel@gmail.com wrote:
Except that since there seem to be more articles requiring improvement than there are people willing or able to devote time to improving them, the question is not "would we want the article if it were improved?", but
"do
we think that the article in its current state is beneficial to the quality of the encyclopedia?".
I'd say the key question is closer to "do we think that the article in its current state is beneficial to the job of writing an encyclopedia". Wikipedia is, after all, a continual work in progress.
On 10/06/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
If you have been nominating, for deletion, articles which you believe could (or even should) be improved rather than deleted, please cease and desist right now.
—C.W.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/10/07, David Mestel david.mestel@gmail.com wrote:
Except that since there seem to be more articles requiring improvement than there are people willing or able to devote time to improving them, the question is not "would we want the article if it were improved?", but "do we think that the article in its current state is beneficial to the quality of the encyclopedia?".
Except in the most extreme cases, deletion should be considered only after other measures have failed.
—C.W.
On 6/10/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, David Mestel david.mestel@gmail.com wrote:
Except that since there seem to be more articles requiring improvement
than
there are people willing or able to devote time to improving them, the question is not "would we want the article if it were improved?", but
"do we
think that the article in its current state is beneficial to the quality
of
the encyclopedia?".
Except in the most extreme cases, deletion should be considered only after other measures have failed.
—C.W.
That's the key, you can't asssume no one will fix it without trying.
On 6/10/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
If you have been nominating, for deletion, articles which you believe could (or even should) be improved rather than deleted, please cease and desist right now.
Well, as a rule I don't nominate AfDs, though at times I do go through them. But even so, as a rule, I don't believe that articles can be improved unless I know something about the topic which I believe is notable and which the article doesn't include. For bio articles on people in notable positions, it's not up to me to search for some real notability about the person, and it is especially not up to me to dig up some personal detail to pad out such an article.
The thing about most such articles is that they can't be improved. I don't fight it personally, because every attempt I've made to get reasonable notability standards set up has been rebuffed by the combined forces of the "it's useful" crowd and the "you want to delete all my work" crowd. But I see lots of articles, especially bios, which could only really be justified by some considerable research, which might not turn up anything anyway. Someone putting a trivial, notability-less article doesn't obligate anyone else to do the work to prove its notability, and particularly in the case of BLPs I think such articles ought to be speedily deleted.
The Mangoe wrote:
On 6/10/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
If you have been nominating, for deletion, articles which you believe could (or even should) be improved rather than deleted, please cease and desist right now.
Well, as a rule I don't nominate AfDs, though at times I do go through them. But even so, as a rule, I don't believe that articles can be improved unless I know something about the topic which I believe is notable and which the article doesn't include. For bio articles on people in notable positions, it's not up to me to search for some real notability about the person, and it is especially not up to me to dig up some personal detail to pad out such an article.
If you don't know anything about the topic, and you don't want to do any real work, that's good enough reason to leave it alone.
The thing about most such articles is that they can't be improved.
What basis do you have for saying that if you don't know anything about the topic?
I don't fight it personally, because every attempt I've made to get reasonable notability standards set up has been rebuffed by the combined forces of the "it's useful" crowd and the "you want to delete all my work" crowd. But I see lots of articles, especially bios, which could only really be justified by some considerable research, which might not turn up anything anyway. Someone putting a trivial, notability-less article doesn't obligate anyone else to do the work to prove its notability, and particularly in the case of BLPs I think such articles ought to be speedily deleted.
So for you the only alternative to doing the considerable research is doing no work at all. Those who would like to improve the 'pedia will be satisfied to add whatever bit they can. They mostly avoid using their own ignorance as a standard for notability.
Ec
In most cases it seems to me that the considerable research won't turn anything up. That seems especially true of the kind of bios that have turned up here. But I am thinking also of the thought that someone writes an article one some person, giving no real evidence for notability, and it's up to everyone else to dig that info up. My gut reation is, you want something in the encyclopedia, it's generally up to you to justify that when you put the article in.
Personally, I think most articles could be improved if the research were done--but it would, as Mangoe says, often be non-trivial research, not the sort that any one of us can do on many articles a day--which is why most people make substantive contributions only to a limited range of subjects. Upon finding an apparently trivial bio on a contemporary subject, it is however almost always possible to do a quick check which would confirm or disprove the validity of many dubious articles. Sometimes in doing this it becomes clear that one can't tell, and then i think it reasonable to nominate for AfD so other people can see it. (It would never be appropriate to nominate for speedy if one were unsure oneself, and there is still no mechanism to ensure that prod's get the attention of the necessary subject groups). I can see the possibility of a more organized check by the people in these groups as a general matter (but the people checking the wide field of biography notability, however well-intentioned, can not possibly be doing it carefully at the speed they are going) DGG
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
If you have been nominating, for deletion, articles which you believe could (or even should) be improved rather than deleted, please cease and desist right now.
Well, as a rule I don't nominate AfDs, though at times I do go through them. But even so, as a rule, I don't believe that articles can be improved unless I know something about the topic which I believe is notable and which the article doesn't include. For bio articles on people in notable positions, it's not up to me to search for some real notability about the person, and it is especially not up to me to dig up some personal detail to pad out such an article.
The thing about most such articles is that they can't be improved. I don't fight it personally, because every attempt I've made to get reasonable notability standards set up has been rebuffed by the combined forces of the "it's useful" crowd and the "you want to delete all my work" crowd. But I see lots of articles, especially bios, which could only really be justified by some considerable research, which might not turn up anything anyway. Someone putting a trivial, notability-less article doesn't obligate anyone else to do the work to prove its notability, and particularly in the case of BLPs I think such articles ought to be speedily deleted.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
If you have been nominating, for deletion, articles which you believe could (or even should) be improved rather than deleted, please cease and desist right now.
Well, as a rule I don't nominate AfDs, though at times I do go through them. But even so, as a rule, I don't believe that articles can be improved unless I know something about the topic which I believe is notable and which the article doesn't include. For bio articles on people in notable positions, it's not up to me to search for some real notability about the person, and it is especially not up to me to dig up some personal detail to pad out such an article.
The thing about most such articles is that they can't be improved. I don't fight it personally, because every attempt I've made to get reasonable notability standards set up has been rebuffed by the combined forces of the "it's useful" crowd and the "you want to delete all my work" crowd. But I see lots of articles, especially bios, which could only really be justified by some considerable research, which might not turn up anything anyway. Someone putting a trivial, notability-less article doesn't obligate anyone else to do the work to prove its notability, and particularly in the case of BLPs I think such articles ought to be speedily deleted.
"The thing about most such articles is that they can't be improved."
Pleaese don't knock editors who can and do put in the effort to research and make a decision based upon the value of the article to Wikipedia, just because you don't.
If I go to AfD and look at articles and vote on them, I decide, based upon WP policies and the information I am able to find, whether or not the article belongs in Wikipedia, not whether or not the editor should have put in better references (you'd be voting to delete [[Rock climbing]] based upon your criteria).
I've fixed up or contributed to fixing up a lot of articles that actually belong in Wikipedia. It just doesn't take a lot more effort than voting, "Delete" it really can't be improved. How can you prove a negative when you're not even trying?
See Daniel Rodriguez. It's the type of small biography that has a place in Wikipedia, but not necessarily in Britannica. But, just because it wasn't perfect, it was up for deletion (not by a deletionist, though). But people put effort into making it a good article, because it is Wikipedia content.
AfD is a process that is being abused--that's how it wound up with an editor vandalizing an account and then nominating it for deletion based upon it missing information he had just removed--that IS the atmosphere at AfD: delete, delete, delete. But that won't write an encyclopedia.
AfD is less work than researching an article. I've been adding sources to plant articles for the last 24 hours--it's a lot of work, verifying first the article has the correct name, checking higher level taxonomies, finding sources, typing in the darn references with 25 word titles, moving articles, and their redirects. AfD is a much easier boost to my edit count.
Half the articles at AfD every time I got there can be fixed, many require simple fixes.
I really don't know what the AfD deletionist community is about, but it's not about improving Wikipedia if articles are vandalized to make them eligible for deletion, if topics found in every major encyclopedia out there are up for deletion, and if improving an article that is up for deletion makes the nominating editors hostile towards you. But none of that is about improving an encyclopedia.
KP
On 6/11/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote: I really don't know what the AfD deletionist community is about, but it's not about improving Wikipedia if articles are vandalized to make them eligible for deletion, if topics found in every major encyclopedia out there are up for deletion, and if improving an article that is up for deletion makes the nominating editors hostile towards you. But none of that is about improving an encyclopedia.
Well, I consider myself a deletionist-leaning Wikipedian, but I can assure you that many deletionist Wikipedians don't operate or think that way. This is a relatively recent phenomenon; incidents of article vandalism and incivility towards those who make an article worth keeping were quite rare a year or two ago. Many old-school deletionists focus just as much on writing articles as they do on discussing their deletion.
Johnleemk
On 6/10/07, John Lee johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
Well, I consider myself a deletionist-leaning Wikipedian, but I can assure you that many deletionist Wikipedians don't operate or think that way. This is a relatively recent phenomenon; incidents of article vandalism and incivility towards those who make an article worth keeping were quite rare a year or two ago. Many old-school deletionists focus just as much on writing articles as they do on discussing their deletion.
I've seen mention by KP and yourself that people have been vandalising articles and then trying to get them deleted, and attacking people who try to improve articles on AFD. I'd like a little more detail, if you could.
I've seen the former happening, but never by established users - by new users as a method of subtle vandalism, yes, and possibly by socks of established users, but I've never seen an established user do it openly. Has it happened?
As to the second - who's doing the attacking? If you can't name names, at least how often and how you'd characterise those doing it?
Thanks,
-Matt
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting thought there; perhaps it would be much better if we had standards for minimum article quality but made efforts to help articles pass them, rather than trying to fail them.
I'm sorry, but I think just the opposite. If you cannot put in at least one sentence which gives a reason why the article should be included, you shouldn't put it in and expect someone else to dig up that reason for you. That seems to be the primary reason we have to have an AfD process: too many people write articles on stuff that they think is self-evidently notable. Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
What about the people who WANT to fix articles like that like the person who started this thread. We have cleanup processes. No one asked if someone wanted to fix it. They just played the numbers game. It's not the amount of Google hits that count.
On 6/11/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting thought there; perhaps it would be much better if we had standards for minimum article quality but made efforts to help articles pass them, rather than trying to fail them.
I'm sorry, but I think just the opposite. If you cannot put in at least one sentence which gives a reason why the article should be included, you shouldn't put it in and expect someone else to dig up that reason for you. That seems to be the primary reason we have to have an AfD process: too many people write articles on stuff that they think is self-evidently notable. Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
What about the people who WANT to fix articles like that like the person who started this thread. We have cleanup processes. No one asked if someone wanted to fix it. They just played the numbers game. It's not the amount of Google hits that count.
I tend to agree with this, in that my standards for what is a useful starting point are lower than most.
But if something really has no sources at all, does having anything really help someone who wants to "fix" it? I do feel there's a minimum level of effort a contributor should make in order for an article to be kept.
On 6/11/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/11/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting thought there; perhaps it would be much better if we
had
standards for minimum article quality but made efforts to help articles pass them, rather than trying to fail them.
I'm sorry, but I think just the opposite. If you cannot put in at least one sentence which gives a reason why the article should be included, you shouldn't put it in and expect someone else to dig up that reason for you. That seems to be the primary reason we have to have an AfD process: too many people write articles on stuff that they think is self-evidently notable. Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
What about the people who WANT to fix articles like that like the
person
who started this thread. We have cleanup processes. No one asked if someone wanted to fix it. They just played the numbers game. It's not the amount of Google hits that count.
I tend to agree with this, in that my standards for what is a useful starting point are lower than most.
But if something really has no sources at all, does having anything really help someone who wants to "fix" it? I do feel there's a minimum level of effort a contributor should make in order for an article to be kept.
Articles usually lack sources because the ccreators are clueless newbies. That doesn't mean there aren't any or that the subject isn't suitable.
On 6/11/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/11/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/11/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
What about the people who WANT to fix articles like that like the
person
who started this thread. We have cleanup processes. No one asked if someone wanted to fix it. They just played the numbers game. It's not the
amount
of Google hits that count.
I tend to agree with this, in that my standards for what is a useful starting point are lower than most.
But if something really has no sources at all, does having anything
really
help someone who wants to "fix" it? I do feel there's a minimum level
of
effort a contributor should make in order for an article to be kept.
Articles usually lack sources because the creators are clueless newbies. That doesn't mean there aren't any or that the subject isn't suitable.
Absolutely. But just because a subject is suitable doesn't mean we should keep any article on that subject. My standards are low as to what I think is " beneficial to the job of writing an encyclopedia", but they're not nonexistent.
If all an article contributes to the encyclopedia is the fact that its subject exists, [[Wikipedia:Requested_articles]] is a more appropriate location.
Anthony wrote:
On 6/11/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting thought there; perhaps it would be much better if we had standards for minimum article quality but made efforts to help articles pass them, rather than trying to fail them.
I'm sorry, but I think just the opposite. If you cannot put in at least one sentence which gives a reason why the article should be included, you shouldn't put it in and expect someone else to dig up that reason for you. That seems to be the primary reason we have to have an AfD process: too many people write articles on stuff that they think is self-evidently notable. Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
What about the people who WANT to fix articles like that like the person who started this thread. We have cleanup processes. No one asked if someone wanted to fix it. They just played the numbers game. It's not the amount of Google hits that count.
I tend to agree with this, in that my standards for what is a useful starting point are lower than most.
But if something really has no sources at all, does having anything really help someone who wants to "fix" it? I do feel there's a minimum level of effort a contributor should make in order for an article to be kept. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
There is. CSD A1, A3, and A7 all address that. If you don't put anything but a title, you include so little that it's impossible to tell what the article is even really about, or you don't make any assertion whatsoever as to why the subject might be notable, it's speedyable.
On 6/11/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 6/11/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/10/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Interesting thought there; perhaps it would be much better if we had standards for minimum article quality but made efforts to help articles pass them, rather than trying to fail them.
I'm sorry, but I think just the opposite. If you cannot put in at least one sentence which gives a reason why the article should be included, you shouldn't put it in and expect someone else to dig up that reason for you. That seems to be the primary reason we have to have an AfD process: too many people write articles on stuff that they think is self-evidently notable. Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with this, other than people write this kind of article in the first place instead of providing the notability themselves.
What about the people who WANT to fix articles like that like the
person
who started this thread. We have cleanup processes. No one asked if someone wanted to fix it. They just played the numbers game. It's not the
amount
of Google hits that count.
I tend to agree with this, in that my standards for what is a useful starting point are lower than most.
But if something really has no sources at all, does having anything
really
help someone who wants to "fix" it? I do feel there's a minimum level
of
effort a contributor should make in order for an article to be kept.
There is. CSD A1, A3, and A7 all address that. If you don't put anything but a title, you include so little that it's impossible to tell what the article is even really about, or you don't make any assertion whatsoever as to why the subject might be notable, it's speedyable.
The first two aren't high enough standards, in my opinion. The third one is talking about article subjects, whereas I was talking about articles.
And the third one is ridiculously vague. What in the world it's supposed to mean to "make any assertion whatsoever as to why the subject might be notable" is beyond me. Actually, I do know what it's supposed to mean - whatever the deleting admin wants it to mean.
On 6/11/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
The first two aren't high enough standards, in my opinion. The third one is talking about article subjects, whereas I was talking about articles.
Which of the following do you consider a valid article:
fjghoeurghvoirjg[rgj]h
John is gay
And the third one is ridiculously vague. What in the world it's supposed to mean to "make any assertion whatsoever as to why the subject might be notable" is beyond me. Actually, I do know what it's supposed to mean - whatever the deleting admin wants it to mean.
Nah. It means rather that "Sally was born in 1992 and attends school with her gay friend John" can be deleted. "Sally was born in 1992 and attends school with her gay friend John. She holds the record for the most patents filed by a 12 year old" would need a prod, AFD or OFFICE. Unless the OTRS people are trying to overstep their authority again.
On 6/11/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/11/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
The first two aren't high enough standards, in my opinion. The third
one is
talking about article subjects, whereas I was talking about articles.
Which of the following do you consider a valid article:
fjghoeurghvoirjg[rgj]h
John is gay
Neither, of course.
And the third one is ridiculously vague. What in the world it's supposed to
mean to "make any assertion whatsoever as to why the subject might be notable" is beyond me. Actually, I do know what it's supposed to mean - whatever the deleting admin wants it to mean.
Nah. It means rather that "Sally was born in 1992 and attends school with her gay friend John" can be deleted.
Bad example as that can also be deleted under A1.
"Sally was born in 1992 and
attends school with her gay friend John. She holds the record for the most patents filed by a 12 year old" would need a prod, AFD or OFFICE.
What if you don't think holding the record for the most patents filed by a 12 year old makes someone notable? What if you think anyone who holds a single patent at any age is notable? Seems to me the criterion means "whatever the deleting admin wants it to mean".
On 6/11/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Bad example as that can also be deleted under A1.
Patent nonsense ? nah we can't show it isn't true.
"Sally was born in 1992 and
attends school with her gay friend John. She holds the record for the most patents filed by a 12 year old" would need a prod, AFD or OFFICE.
What if you don't think holding the record for the most patents filed by a 12 year old makes someone notable? What if you think anyone who holds a single patent at any age is notable? Seems to me the criterion means "whatever the deleting admin wants it to mean".
Fileing a reasonable number of patents is likely to produce a fair number of sources
On 6/11/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/11/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Bad example as that can also be deleted under A1.
Patent nonsense ? nah we can't show it isn't true.
A1, not G1. There is not enough context to determine who you're talking about.
"Sally was born in 1992 and
attends school with her gay friend John. She holds the record for the most patents filed by a 12 year old" would need a prod, AFD or OFFICE.
What if you don't think holding the record for the most patents filed by a 12 year old makes someone notable? What if you think anyone who holds a single patent at any age is notable? Seems to me the criterion means "whatever the deleting admin wants it to mean".
Fileing a reasonable number of patents is likely to produce a fair number of sources
Somehow I doubt I could write an article on my patent-filing uncle and not have it speedied.
Anthony wrote:
On 6/11/07, Todd Allen wrote:
There is. CSD A1, A3, and A7 all address that. If you don't put anything but a title, you include so little that it's impossible to tell what the article is even really about, or you don't make any assertion whatsoever as to why the subject might be notable, it's speedyable.
The first two aren't high enough standards, in my opinion. The third one is talking about article subjects, whereas I was talking about articles.
And the third one is ridiculously vague. What in the world it's supposed to mean to "make any assertion whatsoever as to why the subject might be notable" is beyond me. Actually, I do know what it's supposed to mean - whatever the deleting admin wants it to mean.
Perhaps a template that puts a nicely formatted notice to say "The subject of this article is notable" would do the trick. ;-)
Ec
On 6/11/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
What about the people who WANT to fix articles like that like the person who started this thread. We have cleanup processes. No one asked if someone wanted to fix it. They just played the numbers game. It's not the amount of Google hits that count.
Well, actually the number of Google hits is going to favor current officeholders with articles, as a rule, simply because anyone referring to the office is going to drop their name.
It's interesting to look at this list of past presidents and chancellors of the University of Maryland:
http://www.president.umd.edu/pastpres/
... because for the most part the bios supplied there are very short. There are only three of any significant length. The bio for Mote, the current president, is long, but that's because he's the current president. Wikipedia has no significant biography on any of these except, of course, Mote. I presume some completionist undergraduate at UMCP will eventually stub out the rest, but more likely than not they'll stay that way forever because there simply isn't any other information to be had. And I dunno, if those article show up for AfD a bunch of people are going to say that all university presidents are notable as such, and if anyone goes to the UMCP website and sees that there's no information on them, and says so, someone else will tell them to go look elsewhere. But it's unlikely anyone will look elsewhere. And the clutter problem is already there because one Charles BIshop was president in the early 1970s. Since someone linked every name, he has an article, only it's for the wrong person. I'm not going to make a stub for him, because I don't think he's notable; and if I go and delink the names in the list, I'm sure someone is going to hit we with an inclusionist/eventualist complaint.
But anyway, the answer to the rhetorical question is: if the article gets deleted, and you find good info on it and want to write it, then write it. But write something that at least says enough that people don't wonder why it's there in the first place. You don't need a stub to write an article.
The Mangoe schreef:
And the clutter problem is already there because one Charles BIshop was president in the early 1970s. Since someone linked every name, he has an article, only it's for the wrong person. I'm not going to make a stub for him, because I don't think he's notable; and if I go and delink the names in the list, I'm sure someone is going to hit we with an inclusionist/eventualist complaint.
Have you at the very least changed the link to [[Charles Bishop (University of Maryland)|]] ? That would make it a red link again, and someone else can decide if he's as notable as the Ontarian senator Charles Bishop, or the San Jose mayor Charles Bishop, or the medal of honor recipient Charles Bishop, or the Alabama senator Charles Bishop, or the medical researcher Charles Bishop, none of whom have articles yet. (But all of them are linked to [[Charles Bishop]]. I think I'll make that a disambiguation page now.)
Eugene
On 6/11/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Have you at the very least changed the link to [[Charles Bishop (University of Maryland)|]] ? That would make it a red link again, and someone else can decide if he's as notable as the Ontarian senator Charles Bishop, or the San Jose mayor Charles Bishop, or the medal of honor recipient Charles Bishop, or the Alabama senator Charles Bishop, or the medical researcher Charles Bishop, none of whom have articles yet. (But all of them are linked to [[Charles Bishop]]. I think I'll make that a disambiguation page now.)
I didn't make such a link, because I don't think there should be such an article. Bishop was a minor figure in UMCP history and I'm not going to be the one to suggest that he should have an article.
We could just as easily extend this a little and say that the University of Maryland is a relatively minor figure among American Universities, or Maryland among American States.
And there will be information on every one of them available to the undergraduates as long as the university maintains a library. It may be hard to find some of it outside UMd until it is all online, but the library is already there.
Saying all university presidents are notable is just the first step towards a sane policy, and one which has i think been taken--saying all research university full professors are notable has also been consistently maintained at AfD. There are some things about which consensus does form in a sensible direction.
And the very idea of an encyclopedia--the basic conception underlying the whole notion--is to be complete.
DGG
On 6/11/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/11/07, Eugene van der Pijll eugene@vanderpijll.nl wrote:
Have you at the very least changed the link to [[Charles Bishop (University of Maryland)|]] ?
I didn't make such a link, because I don't think there should be such an article. Bishop was a minor figure in UMCP history and I'm not going to be the one to suggest that he should have an article.
I presume some completionist undergraduate at UMCP will eventually stub out the rest, but more likely than not they'll stay that way forever because there simply isn't any other information to be had. And I dunno, if those article show up for AfD a bunch of people are going to say that all university presidents are notable as such, and if anyone goes to the UMCP website and sees that there's no information on them, and says so, someone else will tell them to go look elsewhere. But it's unlikely anyone will look elsewhere.
On 6/14/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
We could just as easily extend this a little and say that the University of Maryland is a relatively minor figure among American Universities, or Maryland among American States.
You could say just about anything, but not all of it would be true. Indeed, the evidence is right there in the article: much is said about UMCP, and little is said about these presidents.
Saying all university presidents are notable is just the first step towards a sane policy, and one which has i think been taken--saying all research university full professors are notable has also been consistently maintained at AfD. There are some things about which consensus does form in a sensible direction.
Well, if everyone in a certain position is notable, then we could go forth and say that all positions are notable. At any rate, there are some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has more. That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival of the project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in entering these directories (for that is what they will largely be).
On 6/15/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/14/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Saying all university presidents are notable is just the first step towards a sane policy, and one which has i think been taken--saying all research university full professors are notable has also been consistently maintained at AfD. There are some things about which consensus does form in a sensible direction.
Well, if everyone in a certain position is notable, then we could go forth and say that all positions are notable.
And we'd be finally approaching a reasonable solution to the question of notability: If they are the subject of multiple reliable third party sources, then they're notable; position is irrelevant.
At any rate, there are some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has more. That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival of the project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in entering these directories (for that is what they will largely be).
Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with 1400 additional entries? If so, I have to disagree.
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/15/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
At any rate, there are some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has more. That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival of the project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in entering these directories (for that is what they will largely be).
Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with 1400 additional entries? If so, I have to disagree.
Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still disagree.
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still disagree.
Hundreds of thousands of them, and every railroad station that ever existed, and every town in the world, and all of their mayors-- ever-- and so forth. The only thing that holds this back is that information on most of these people and things takes enough effort to prevent any but the obsessive from dredging it up. But if it were all entered, the place would be filled with clutter.
On 6/16/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still disagree.
Hundreds of thousands of them, and every railroad station that ever existed, and every town in the world, and all of their mayors-- ever-- and so forth. The only thing that holds this back is that information on most of these people and things takes enough effort to prevent any but the obsessive from dredging it up. But if it were all entered, the place would be filled with clutter.
So then all the encyclopedic info in the world is "clutter"? I'm sorry, but I think that is a terrible attitude. ~~~~
The Mangoe wrote:
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still disagree.
Hundreds of thousands of them, and every railroad station that ever existed, and every town in the world, and all of their mayors-- ever-- and so forth. The only thing that holds this back is that information on most of these people and things takes enough effort to prevent any but the obsessive from dredging it up. But if it were all entered, the place would be filled with clutter.
Clutter perhaps, but harmless clutter at worst. There are people interested in local history who would appreciate knowing who the former mayors were, and what made them special at the time that they lived. (Can't say about mayors, but I do have publications with lists of postmasters.) I admit too that it takes a fair amount of obsession to dig it all up, but if an editor has it I'm not going to complain. It all still needs to be verifiable, but that should be no problem in most of these situations.
Ec
On 6/16/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Clutter perhaps, but harmless clutter at worst. There are people interested in local history who would appreciate knowing who the former mayors were, and what made them special at the time that they lived. (Can't say about mayors, but I do have publications with lists of postmasters.) I admit too that it takes a fair amount of obsession to dig it all up, but if an editor has it I'm not going to complain. It all still needs to be verifiable, but that should be no problem in most of these situations.
The thing is, these can be neatly handled as lists within articles. In a lot of cases that's a better way to enter the stuff anyway, because the lack of structure obscures things overall. BUt putting an article for each entry looks like more is being accomplished, so people would rather do that.
The Mangoe wrote:
On 6/16/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Clutter perhaps, but harmless clutter at worst. There are people interested in local history who would appreciate knowing who the former mayors were, and what made them special at the time that they lived. (Can't say about mayors, but I do have publications with lists of postmasters.) I admit too that it takes a fair amount of obsession to dig it all up, but if an editor has it I'm not going to complain. It all still needs to be verifiable, but that should be no problem in most of these situations.
The thing is, these can be neatly handled as lists within articles. In a lot of cases that's a better way to enter the stuff anyway, because the lack of structure obscures things overall. BUt putting an article for each entry looks like more is being accomplished, so people would rather do that.
Sure, some times lists are better, especially if all we know about the people on the list is their names, and maybe their years in office.. The lists can be wikified and wait until someone has something more to say about them. These articles are not going to spring up overningt. It will likely take years for even the obsessives to do the work that they feel is needed.
Ec
Anthony wrote:
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/15/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
At any rate, there are some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has more. That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival of the project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in entering these directories (for that is what they will largely be).
Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with 1400 additional entries? If so, I have to disagree.
Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still disagree.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I wouldn't go so far as to say it would kill off the project, but I believe it would be bad for it. We're not attempting to create "Who's Who in Academia", we're attempting to create an encyclopedia. By covering subjects which are barely of note, very little information exists for, and will be forgotten completely ten years from now, we are giving them undue weight simply by inclusion. That violates NPOV, which -is- a core principle.
On 6/16/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
I wouldn't go so far as to say it would kill off the project, but I believe it would be bad for it. We're not attempting to create "Who's Who in Academia", we're attempting to create an encyclopedia. By covering subjects which are barely of note, very little information exists for, and will be forgotten completely ten years from now, we are giving them undue weight simply by inclusion. That violates NPOV, which -is- a core principle.
That's a rather novel interpretation of NPOV.
-Matthew
Matthew Brown wrote:
On 6/16/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
I wouldn't go so far as to say it would kill off the project, but I believe it would be bad for it. We're not attempting to create "Who's Who in Academia", we're attempting to create an encyclopedia. By covering subjects which are barely of note, very little information exists for, and will be forgotten completely ten years from now, we are giving them undue weight simply by inclusion. That violates NPOV, which -is- a core principle.
That's a rather novel interpretation of NPOV.
-Matthew
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Nah, I really don't think it is. (Actually, I'm quite sure I've heard it at least a few times, though I couldn't tell you where.) Why do you think so many non-notable or marginally-notable bands fight to have their article kept? Mainly, because by putting an article in something purported to be an encyclopedia, we are asserting that, in some real way, that topic is one of importance to human knowledge through the ages.
That may apply to the president of a major university. It most certainly does -not- apply to all its faculty, especially when all that we can reliably source is "X was a professor of Y at Z University." That can very easily be mentioned on one line in the university article, or a list ("Faculty of Z University from year A to year B") if it must be split out. Of course, in many cases, it may not be terribly important -who- it was at all.
I'm really not sure how "undue weight" is a novel interpretation of NPOV, that's been in it as long as I can remember. By putting a subject in a separate article, we're giving it a certain amount of weight. By putting it in a list or main article, we're giving it a different amount. How much weight is appropriate should be a careful case-by-case consideration, not just "Ah, let's have separate-page articles on every (professor/album/minor pro sports player/5-person "census designated location"/train station/...)". In many cases, the appropriate amount of weight is a list entry, not a full article. In others, it's not to mention at all.
On 6/17/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Nah, I really don't think it is. (Actually, I'm quite sure I've heard it at least a few times, though I couldn't tell you where.) Why do you think so many non-notable or marginally-notable bands fight to have their article kept? Mainly, because by putting an article in something purported to be an encyclopedia, we are asserting that, in some real way, that topic is one of importance to human knowledge through the ages.
I think it's more that because by putting an article in Wikipedia, we are asserting that it is something of importance to human knowledge through the ages. IOW, if Wikipedia's standards were objective and neutral, then I don't think there would be such a big desire to get into Wikipedia.
I'm really not sure how "undue weight" is a novel interpretation of NPOV, that's been in it as long as I can remember.
I agree with this. It's not a novel interpretation at all. It is one I disagree with. Voting on whether or not to include a topic in an encyclopedia rather than using neutral, objective, easily applied criteria to determine inclusion, is what violates NPOV in my opinion.
On Sat, Jun 16, 2007 at 09:02:06PM -0700, Todd Allen wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/15/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
At any rate, there are some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has more. That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival of the project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in entering these directories (for that is what they will largely be).
Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with 1400 additional entries? If so, I have to disagree.
Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still disagree.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I wouldn't go so far as to say it would kill off the project, but I believe it would be bad for it. We're not attempting to create "Who's Who in Academia", we're attempting to create an encyclopedia. By covering subjects which are barely of note, very little information exists for, and will be forgotten completely ten years from now, we are giving them undue weight simply by inclusion. That violates NPOV, which -is- a core principle.
I do not think anybody is really suggesting that all academics should get a wikipedia article. It is at least arguable that Professors in the UK and other Commonwealth countries, where most acdaemics are not Professors, should have an article. In the US that would apply to named and distinguished chairs which are comparable.
What concerns me is that we do give undue weight to people in other areas, where in general they are even less notable. For example, just taking one example I looked up just now, my local AFL Club, the [[Western Bulldogs]], has an article that lists the current squad of players. There are 44. That means some of them will hardly get a game the whole session. Only 3 are redlinks. 41 of them appear to have articles. Most of these people will be far more forgotten in 10 years time than academics who will have published something. It seems to me that we include sports people and some others far more easily than we include academics. We even had two Australian Vice Chancelloes up at AfD this last week. We have articles for only about half the Fellows of the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences and many other highly notable academies. We need more articles on good academics.
If only people would write about academics who deserve an article rather on vanity stuff about their supervisor or themseleves. Oh well!.
Brian.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/16/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Sat, Jun 16, 2007 at 09:02:06PM -0700, Todd Allen wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/15/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
At any rate, there are some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has more. That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival of the project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in entering these directories (for that is what they will largely be).
Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with 1400 additional entries? If so, I have to disagree.
Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still disagree.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I wouldn't go so far as to say it would kill off the project, but I believe it would be bad for it. We're not attempting to create "Who's Who in Academia", we're attempting to create an encyclopedia. By covering subjects which are barely of note, very little information exists for, and will be forgotten completely ten years from now, we are giving them undue weight simply by inclusion. That violates NPOV, which -is- a core principle.
I do not think anybody is really suggesting that all academics should get a wikipedia article. It is at least arguable that Professors in the UK and other Commonwealth countries, where most acdaemics are not Professors, should have an article. In the US that would apply to named and distinguished chairs which are comparable.
What concerns me is that we do give undue weight to people in other areas, where in general they are even less notable. For example, just taking one example I looked up just now, my local AFL Club, the [[Western Bulldogs]], has an article that lists the current squad of players. There are 44. That means some of them will hardly get a game the whole session. Only 3 are redlinks. 41 of them appear to have articles. Most of these people will be far more forgotten in 10 years time than academics who will have published something. It seems to me that we include sports people and some others far more easily than we include academics. We even had two Australian Vice Chancelloes up at AfD this last week. We have articles for only about half the Fellows of the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences and many other highly notable academies. We need more articles on good academics.
If only people would write about academics who deserve an article rather on vanity stuff about their supervisor or themseleves. Oh well!.
Brian.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
Yes, there are some pretty minor football players with articles, but they do get written up in the news in such a way that the information is available on the web.
A current AfD, American Polygraph Association, a professional organization for, well, polygraph technicians. The organization itself has been the subject of much international research and scandal because professional polygraph organizations outside of North America disagree with a technique favored by the APA--the organization and this technique have, therefore, been the subject of numerous articles in international psychology and criminalogy journals, not the stuff found on the web. This is old stuff from when I studied witness testimony, not current knowledge, but I was able to find a couple of sources.
Oh, let's see, why was it nominated for deletion? According to user:Wikihermit:
Non notable organization.
In other words, someone's personal point of view offered up as an exercise in wasting time.
Football players? They're everywhere. I just edited an aricle for a college (American) football quarterback.
KP
On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 04:02:29PM -0700, K P wrote:
On 6/16/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Sat, Jun 16, 2007 at 09:02:06PM -0700, Todd Allen wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/15/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
At any rate, there are some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has more. That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival of
the
project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in entering these directories (for that is what they will largely be).
Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with 1400 additional entries? If so, I have to disagree.
Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still disagree.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I wouldn't go so far as to say it would kill off the project, but I believe it would be bad for it. We're not attempting to create "Who's Who in Academia", we're attempting to create an encyclopedia. By covering subjects which are barely of note, very little information exists for, and will be forgotten completely ten years from now, we are giving them undue weight simply by inclusion. That violates NPOV, which -is- a core principle.
I do not think anybody is really suggesting that all academics should get a wikipedia article. It is at least arguable that Professors in the UK and other Commonwealth countries, where most acdaemics are not Professors, should have an article. In the US that would apply to named and distinguished chairs which are comparable.
What concerns me is that we do give undue weight to people in other areas, where in general they are even less notable. For example, just taking one example I looked up just now, my local AFL Club, the [[Western Bulldogs]], has an article that lists the current squad of players. There are 44. That means some of them will hardly get a game the whole session. Only 3 are redlinks. 41 of them appear to have articles. Most of these people will be far more forgotten in 10 years time than academics who will have published something. It seems to me that we include sports people and some others far more easily than we include academics. We even had two Australian Vice Chancelloes up at AfD this last week. We have articles for only about half the Fellows of the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences and many other highly notable academies. We need more articles on good academics.
If only people would write about academics who deserve an article rather on vanity stuff about their supervisor or themseleves. Oh well!.
Brian.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
Yes, there are some pretty minor football players with articles, but they do get written up in the news in such a way that the information is available on the web.
A current AfD, American Polygraph Association, a professional organization for, well, polygraph technicians. The organization itself has been the subject of much international research and scandal because professional polygraph organizations outside of North America disagree with a technique favored by the APA--the organization and this technique have, therefore, been the subject of numerous articles in international psychology and criminalogy journals, not the stuff found on the web. This is old stuff from when I studied witness testimony, not current knowledge, but I was able to find a couple of sources.
Oh, let's see, why was it nominated for deletion? According to user:Wikihermit:
Non notable organization.
In other words, someone's personal point of view offered up as an exercise in wasting time.
Indeed, and the AfD's for Australian University Vice Chancellors are a waste of time too. Footy players get internet references. Academics get references too, but they are often less accessable. We should treat them the same.
Football players? They're everywhere. I just edited an aricle for a college (American) football quarterback.
KP
On 6/17/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 04:02:29PM -0700, K P wrote:
On 6/16/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Sat, Jun 16, 2007 at 09:02:06PM -0700, Todd Allen wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 6/15/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
> At any rate, there are > some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has more. > That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present > faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival of
the
> project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in entering > these directories (for that is what they will largely be). > > Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with 1400 additional entries? If so, I have to disagree.
Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still disagree.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I wouldn't go so far as to say it would kill off the project, but I believe it would be bad for it. We're not attempting to create "Who's Who in Academia", we're attempting to create an encyclopedia. By covering subjects which are barely of note, very little information exists for, and will be forgotten completely ten years from now, we are giving them undue weight simply by inclusion. That violates NPOV, which -is- a core principle.
I do not think anybody is really suggesting that all academics should get a wikipedia article. It is at least arguable that Professors in the UK and other Commonwealth countries, where most acdaemics are not Professors, should have an article. In the US that would apply to named and distinguished chairs which are comparable.
What concerns me is that we do give undue weight to people in other areas, where in general they are even less notable. For example, just taking one example I looked up just now, my local AFL Club, the [[Western Bulldogs]], has an article that lists the current squad of players. There are 44. That means some of them will hardly get a game the whole session. Only 3 are redlinks. 41 of them appear to have articles. Most of these people will be far more forgotten in 10 years time than academics who will have published something. It seems to me that we include sports people and some others far more easily than we include academics. We even had two Australian Vice Chancelloes up at AfD this last week. We have articles for only about half the Fellows of the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences and many other highly notable academies. We need more articles on good academics.
If only people would write about academics who deserve an article rather on vanity stuff about their supervisor or themseleves. Oh well!.
Brian.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
Yes, there are some pretty minor football players with articles, but they do get written up in the news in such a way that the information is available on the web.
A current AfD, American Polygraph Association, a professional organization for, well, polygraph technicians. The organization itself has been the subject of much international research and scandal because professional polygraph organizations outside of North America disagree with a technique favored by the APA--the organization and this technique have, therefore, been the subject of numerous articles in international psychology and criminalogy journals, not the stuff found on the web. This is old stuff from when I studied witness testimony, not current knowledge, but I was able to find a couple of sources.
Oh, let's see, why was it nominated for deletion? According to user:Wikihermit:
Non notable organization.
In other words, someone's personal point of view offered up as an exercise in wasting time.
Indeed, and the AfD's for Australian University Vice Chancellors are a waste of time too. Footy players get internet references. Academics get references too, but they are often less accessable. We should treat them the same.
Football players? They're everywhere. I just edited an aricle for a college (American) football quarterback.
KP
-- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
Well, we should probably lean towards more articles on the academics, than college football players.
KP
On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 06:56:55PM -0700, K P wrote:
On 6/17/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 04:02:29PM -0700, K P wrote:
On 6/16/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Sat, Jun 16, 2007 at 09:02:06PM -0700, Todd Allen wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 6/16/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
> On 6/15/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote: > >> At any rate, there are >> some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has
more.
>> That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present >> faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival
of
the
>> project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in
entering
>> these directories (for that is what they will largely be). >> >> > Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with 1400
additional
> entries? If so, I have to disagree. > > Sorry, misread. Are you suggesting that the project won't survive with hundreds of thousands of additional entries? I still
disagree.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I wouldn't go so far as to say it would kill off the project, but I believe it would be bad for it. We're not attempting to create "Who's Who in Academia", we're attempting to create an encyclopedia. By covering subjects which are barely of note, very little information exists for, and will be forgotten completely ten years from now, we
are
giving them undue weight simply by inclusion. That violates NPOV,
which
-is- a core principle.
I do not think anybody is really suggesting that all academics should get a wikipedia article. It is at least arguable that Professors in the UK and other Commonwealth countries, where most acdaemics are not Professors, should have an article. In the US that would apply to named and distinguished chairs which are comparable.
What concerns me is that we do give undue weight to people in other areas, where in general they are even less notable. For example, just taking one example I looked up just now, my local AFL Club, the [[Western Bulldogs]], has an article that lists the current squad of players. There are 44. That means some of them will hardly get a game the whole session. Only 3 are redlinks. 41 of them appear to have articles. Most of these people will be far more forgotten in 10 years time than academics who will have published something. It seems to me that we include sports people and some others far more easily than we include academics. We even had two Australian Vice Chancelloes up at
AfD
this last week. We have articles for only about half the Fellows of the Royal Society, the National Academy of Sciences and many other highly notable academies. We need more articles on good academics.
If only people would write about academics who deserve an article
rather
on vanity stuff about their supervisor or themseleves. Oh well!.
Brian.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
Yes, there are some pretty minor football players with articles, but they do get written up in the news in such a way that the information is available on the web.
A current AfD, American Polygraph Association, a professional organization for, well, polygraph technicians. The organization itself has been the subject of much international research and scandal because professional polygraph organizations outside of North America disagree with a technique favored by the APA--the organization and this technique have, therefore, been the subject of numerous articles in international psychology and criminalogy journals, not the stuff found on the web. This is old stuff from when I studied witness testimony, not current knowledge, but I was able to find a couple of sources.
Oh, let's see, why was it nominated for deletion? According to user:Wikihermit:
Non notable organization.
In other words, someone's personal point of view offered up as an exercise in wasting time.
Indeed, and the AfD's for Australian University Vice Chancellors are a waste of time too. Footy players get internet references. Academics get references too, but they are often less accessable. We should treat them the same.
Football players? They're everywhere. I just edited an aricle for a college (American) football quarterback.
KP
-- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
Well, we should probably lean towards more articles on the academics, than college football players.
Indeed, but it is the reverse at present, even for very distinguished academics such as FRSs. We certainly do not have articles on every Australian VC (about 34). I bet we gave an article on every manager of an AFL side (16) and about 20 - 30 articles on players for each team.
KP
On 6/17/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Well, we should probably lean towards more articles on the academics, than college football players.
The beauty of Wikipedia is that we can write about both, as long as we can find reliable sources for what we write. I have created at least a couple articles about college student-athletes who have yet to play at the professional level, but it was basketball not football. If you asked me to write an article about their physics instructors, I would not know where to begin looking for info. But if somebody else can do that, more power to them.
—C.W.
Systemic bias is best countered by adding new topics to balance/offset the existing ones, not by impugning those which have been created "too soon".
—C.W.
On 6/17/07, Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com wrote:
Systemic bias is best countered by adding new topics to balance/offset the existing ones, not by impugning those which have been created "too soon".
—C.W.
Sadly adding new topics becomes not a drive to add them, but more time spent trying to keep them, then it takes to actually enter and write them. And, again, AfD has gotten weird, with editors creating accounts simply for AfD, editing articls to make them appear worse than they are, then nominating them, nominating [[Rock climbing]] for deletion. Inappropriate deletion creates time, it diverts people's energies from what interests them, what brought them to Wikipedia in the first place, and forces them to "save" articles that should be in Wikipedia.
KP
On 18/06/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Sadly adding new topics becomes not a drive to add them, but more time spent trying to keep them, then it takes to actually enter and write them. (...) Inappropriate deletion creates time, it diverts people's energies from what interests them, what brought them to Wikipedia in the first place, and forces them to "save" articles that should be in Wikipedia.
I know I only ever seem to reply to you when you talk about deletionism, but it occurs to me I've never brought up my experience.
I spent a lot of my on-wiki time of the first half of the year churning out a large set of stubby "framework articles" on various topics; nothing remarkable, a couple of sentences each and a reference and some categories. I was, at times, turning out ten an hour. A lot of them even *I* consider borderline significant - we're talking "obscure Victorian statutes" here.
I got one nomination for deletion - a mistaken speedy from someone who was confused about a disambiguation page (well, duh, of *course* it had no content). Looking through the list I keep in userspace, maybe three have been nominated for deletion, and two were kept - the third was a decision I don't agree with, but it fit with an existing line of consensus dating back quite a while. One got politely queried - so I explained thier significance better - and one got merged into a larger page, where it was arguably more useful anyway.
So, you know, there's my anecdote, just to balance all these tales of woe. I'm running at maybe 1% of articles challenged for inclusion, and only a fraction of those removed. Maybe I get deference (but I doubt it); maybe I just have the knack of making things look "right" in their first draft; maybe my working hours are less 'dangerous' than yours. But I don't meet a piranha tank of deletion; I create and watchlist and forget, and they sit there for months.
On 6/18/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/06/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Sadly adding new topics becomes not a drive to add them, but more time spent trying to keep them, then it takes to actually enter and write them. (...) Inappropriate deletion creates time, it diverts people's energies from what interests them, what brought them to Wikipedia in the first place, and forces them to "save" articles that should be in Wikipedia.
I know I only ever seem to reply to you when you talk about deletionism, but it occurs to me I've never brought up my experience.
I spent a lot of my on-wiki time of the first half of the year churning out a large set of stubby "framework articles" on various topics; nothing remarkable, a couple of sentences each and a reference and some categories. I was, at times, turning out ten an hour. A lot of them even *I* consider borderline significant - we're talking "obscure Victorian statutes" here.
I got one nomination for deletion - a mistaken speedy from someone who was confused about a disambiguation page (well, duh, of *course* it had no content). Looking through the list I keep in userspace, maybe three have been nominated for deletion, and two were kept - the third was a decision I don't agree with, but it fit with an existing line of consensus dating back quite a while. One got politely queried - so I explained thier significance better - and one got merged into a larger page, where it was arguably more useful anyway.
So, you know, there's my anecdote, just to balance all these tales of woe. I'm running at maybe 1% of articles challenged for inclusion, and only a fraction of those removed. Maybe I get deference (but I doubt it); maybe I just have the knack of making things look "right" in their first draft; maybe my working hours are less 'dangerous' than yours. But I don't meet a piranha tank of deletion; I create and watchlist and forget, and they sit there for months.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
I haven't started a lot of articles, maybe 30-50. But many are single line stubs. I haven't had any of them put up for deletion, even the single liners that no one else has ever edited (after one of my stalkers copyedited, of course). The pictures always get edited (although my image editor is currently on vacation), and they often get categorized, and they get linked to, because they're organisms that get linked to their family or families to their orders or to their phyla or divisions, but they don't get prodded or AfDed. I did start some as an anon IP also, and none of those were deleted.
KP
In addition to keeping articles from good editors, we need to find a way to encourage the keeping and improvement from those less skilled, and teaching them in the process.
On 6/18/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/18/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/06/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Sadly adding new topics becomes not a drive to add them, but more time spent trying to keep them, then it takes to actually enter and write them. (...) Inappropriate deletion creates time, it diverts people's energies from what interests them, what brought them to Wikipedia in the first place, and forces them to "save" articles that should be in Wikipedia.
I know I only ever seem to reply to you when you talk about deletionism, but it occurs to me I've never brought up my experience.
I spent a lot of my on-wiki time of the first half of the year churning out a large set of stubby "framework articles" on various topics; nothing remarkable, a couple of sentences each and a reference and some categories. I was, at times, turning out ten an hour. A lot of them even *I* consider borderline significant - we're talking "obscure Victorian statutes" here.
I got one nomination for deletion - a mistaken speedy from someone who was confused about a disambiguation page (well, duh, of *course* it had no content). Looking through the list I keep in userspace, maybe three have been nominated for deletion, and two were kept - the third was a decision I don't agree with, but it fit with an existing line of consensus dating back quite a while. One got politely queried - so I explained thier significance better - and one got merged into a larger page, where it was arguably more useful anyway.
So, you know, there's my anecdote, just to balance all these tales of woe. I'm running at maybe 1% of articles challenged for inclusion, and only a fraction of those removed. Maybe I get deference (but I doubt it); maybe I just have the knack of making things look "right" in their first draft; maybe my working hours are less 'dangerous' than yours. But I don't meet a piranha tank of deletion; I create and watchlist and forget, and they sit there for months.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
I haven't started a lot of articles, maybe 30-50. But many are single line stubs. I haven't had any of them put up for deletion, even the single liners that no one else has ever edited (after one of my stalkers copyedited, of course). The pictures always get edited (although my image editor is currently on vacation), and they often get categorized, and they get linked to, because they're organisms that get linked to their family or families to their orders or to their phyla or divisions, but they don't get prodded or AfDed. I did start some as an anon IP also, and none of those were deleted.
KP
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
What about a "WikiProject adopting articles by new users" (possibly a subdivision of WP:ADOPT)? The members could categorise articles in something like "Category:Articles by new users" and template it appropriately so the article doesn't get instantly deleted, and we might just attract many more new contributors. WP is way too complicated with its millions of policies and Notability criteria already, and too much anon good faith edits are marked as vandalism or reverted without further comment. (I made this up in a few seconds so don't flame me too hard if this idea is ridiculous ^^)
-Salaskan
2007/6/21, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com:
In addition to keeping articles from good editors, we need to find a way to encourage the keeping and improvement from those less skilled, and teaching them in the process.
On 6/18/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/18/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/06/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Sadly adding new topics becomes not a drive to add them, but more
time
spent trying to keep them, then it takes to actually enter and write them. (...) Inappropriate deletion creates time, it diverts
people's
energies from what interests them, what brought them to Wikipedia in the first place, and forces them to "save" articles that should be
in
Wikipedia.
I know I only ever seem to reply to you when you talk about deletionism, but it occurs to me I've never brought up my experience.
I spent a lot of my on-wiki time of the first half of the year churning out a large set of stubby "framework articles" on various topics; nothing remarkable, a couple of sentences each and a reference and some categories. I was, at times, turning out ten an hour. A lot of them even *I* consider borderline significant - we're talking "obscure Victorian statutes" here.
I got one nomination for deletion - a mistaken speedy from someone who was confused about a disambiguation page (well, duh, of *course* it had no content). Looking through the list I keep in userspace, maybe three have been nominated for deletion, and two were kept - the third was a decision I don't agree with, but it fit with an existing line of consensus dating back quite a while. One got politely queried - so I explained thier significance better - and one got merged into a larger page, where it was arguably more useful anyway.
So, you know, there's my anecdote, just to balance all these tales of woe. I'm running at maybe 1% of articles challenged for inclusion, and only a fraction of those removed. Maybe I get deference (but I doubt it); maybe I just have the knack of making things look "right" in their first draft; maybe my working hours are less 'dangerous' than yours. But I don't meet a piranha tank of deletion; I create and watchlist and forget, and they sit there for months.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
I haven't started a lot of articles, maybe 30-50. But many are single line stubs. I haven't had any of them put up for deletion, even the single liners that no one else has ever edited (after one of my stalkers copyedited, of course). The pictures always get edited (although my image editor is currently on vacation), and they often get categorized, and they get linked to, because they're organisms that get linked to their family or families to their orders or to their phyla or divisions, but they don't get prodded or AfDed. I did start some as an anon IP also, and none of those were deleted.
KP
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 6/21/07, Skander - shinywater@gmail.com wrote:
What about a "WikiProject adopting articles by new users" (possibly a subdivision of WP:ADOPT)? The members could categorise articles in something like "Category:Articles by new users" and template it appropriately so the article doesn't get instantly deleted, and we might just attract many more new contributors. WP is way too complicated with its millions of policies and Notability criteria already, and too much anon good faith edits are marked as vandalism or reverted without further comment. (I made this up in a few seconds so don't flame me too hard if this idea is ridiculous ^^)
-Salaskan
2007/6/21, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com:
In addition to keeping articles from good editors, we need to find a way to encourage the keeping and improvement from those less skilled, and teaching them in the process.
On 6/18/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/18/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/06/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Sadly adding new topics becomes not a drive to add them, but more
time
spent trying to keep them, then it takes to actually enter and write them. (...) Inappropriate deletion creates time, it diverts
people's
energies from what interests them, what brought them to Wikipedia in the first place, and forces them to "save" articles that should be
in
Wikipedia.
I know I only ever seem to reply to you when you talk about deletionism, but it occurs to me I've never brought up my experience.
I spent a lot of my on-wiki time of the first half of the year churning out a large set of stubby "framework articles" on various topics; nothing remarkable, a couple of sentences each and a reference and some categories. I was, at times, turning out ten an hour. A lot of them even *I* consider borderline significant - we're talking "obscure Victorian statutes" here.
I got one nomination for deletion - a mistaken speedy from someone who was confused about a disambiguation page (well, duh, of *course* it had no content). Looking through the list I keep in userspace, maybe three have been nominated for deletion, and two were kept - the third was a decision I don't agree with, but it fit with an existing line of consensus dating back quite a while. One got politely queried - so I explained thier significance better - and one got merged into a larger page, where it was arguably more useful anyway.
So, you know, there's my anecdote, just to balance all these tales of woe. I'm running at maybe 1% of articles challenged for inclusion, and only a fraction of those removed. Maybe I get deference (but I doubt it); maybe I just have the knack of making things look "right" in their first draft; maybe my working hours are less 'dangerous' than yours. But I don't meet a piranha tank of deletion; I create and watchlist and forget, and they sit there for months.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
I haven't started a lot of articles, maybe 30-50. But many are single line stubs. I haven't had any of them put up for deletion, even the single liners that no one else has ever edited (after one of my stalkers copyedited, of course). The pictures always get edited (although my image editor is currently on vacation), and they often get categorized, and they get linked to, because they're organisms that get linked to their family or families to their orders or to their phyla or divisions, but they don't get prodded or AfDed. I did start some as an anon IP also, and none of those were deleted.
KP
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
From s small sample this evening there were about 30 pages from new
users per hour, or 500/day.
On 6/21/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/21/07, Skander - shinywater@gmail.com wrote:
What about a "WikiProject adopting articles by new users" (possibly a subdivision of WP:ADOPT)? The members could categorise articles in something like "Category:Articles by new users" and template it appropriately so the article doesn't get instantly deleted, and we might just attract many more new contributors. WP is way too complicated with its millions of policies and Notability criteria already, and too much anon good faith edits are marked as vandalism or reverted without further comment. (I made this up in a few seconds so don't flame me too hard if this idea is ridiculous ^^)
-Salaskan
2007/6/21, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com:
In addition to keeping articles from good editors, we need to find a way to encourage the keeping and improvement from those less skilled, and teaching them in the process.
On 6/18/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/18/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/06/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Sadly adding new topics becomes not a drive to add them, but more
time
spent trying to keep them, then it takes to actually enter and write them. (...) Inappropriate deletion creates time, it diverts
people's
energies from what interests them, what brought them to Wikipedia in the first place, and forces them to "save" articles that should be
in
Wikipedia.
I know I only ever seem to reply to you when you talk about deletionism, but it occurs to me I've never brought up my experience.
I spent a lot of my on-wiki time of the first half of the year churning out a large set of stubby "framework articles" on various topics; nothing remarkable, a couple of sentences each and a reference and some categories. I was, at times, turning out ten an hour. A lot of them even *I* consider borderline significant - we're talking "obscure Victorian statutes" here.
I got one nomination for deletion - a mistaken speedy from someone who was confused about a disambiguation page (well, duh, of *course* it had no content). Looking through the list I keep in userspace, maybe three have been nominated for deletion, and two were kept - the third was a decision I don't agree with, but it fit with an existing line of consensus dating back quite a while. One got politely queried - so I explained thier significance better - and one got merged into a larger page, where it was arguably more useful anyway.
So, you know, there's my anecdote, just to balance all these tales of woe. I'm running at maybe 1% of articles challenged for inclusion, and only a fraction of those removed. Maybe I get deference (but I doubt it); maybe I just have the knack of making things look "right" in their first draft; maybe my working hours are less 'dangerous' than yours. But I don't meet a piranha tank of deletion; I create and watchlist and forget, and they sit there for months.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
I haven't started a lot of articles, maybe 30-50. But many are single line stubs. I haven't had any of them put up for deletion, even the single liners that no one else has ever edited (after one of my stalkers copyedited, of course). The pictures always get edited (although my image editor is currently on vacation), and they often get categorized, and they get linked to, because they're organisms that get linked to their family or families to their orders or to their phyla or divisions, but they don't get prodded or AfDed. I did start some as an anon IP also, and none of those were deleted.
KP
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
On 22/06/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
From s small sample this evening there were about 30 pages from new users per hour, or 500/day.
a) Was that count in the first hour or two after uploading, or looking back a few hours? Quite a lot of new stuff is promptly deleted or redirected, and thus won't show up on special:newpages afterwards.
b) Which hour did you sample?
c) New as in user's-first-contribution, new by account age, or some other metric? (redlinked user/talk pages?)
Just curious...
K P-3 wrote:
A current AfD, American Polygraph Association, a professional organization for, well, polygraph technicians. The organization itself has been the subject of much international research and scandal because professional polygraph organizations outside of North America disagree with a technique favored by the APA--the organization and this technique have, therefore, been the subject of numerous articles in international psychology and criminalogy journals, not the stuff found on the web. This is old stuff from when I studied witness testimony, not current knowledge, but I was able to find a couple of sources.
Sorted. Now go and improve that article to make me look less silly.
HTH HAND
On 6/18/07, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
K P-3 wrote:
A current AfD, American Polygraph Association, a professional organization for, well, polygraph technicians. The organization itself has been the subject of much international research and scandal because professional polygraph organizations outside of North America disagree with a technique favored by the APA--the organization and this technique have, therefore, been the subject of numerous articles in international psychology and criminalogy journals, not the stuff found on the web. This is old stuff from when I studied witness testimony, not current knowledge, but I was able to find a couple of sources.
Sorted. Now go and improve that article to make me look less silly.
HTH HAND
Phil
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/I%27m-disappointed-in-Wikipedia.-tf3894385.html#a11171... Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
The controversy is interesting, especially since it's all in academic journals (which I read by the busload), and there is other information. I think I might see what Elizabeth F. Loftus has to say on the subject, if anything.
Thanks.
KP
On 6/18/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/18/07, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
K P-3 wrote:
A current AfD, American Polygraph Association, a professional organization for, well, polygraph technicians. The organization itself has been the subject of much international research and scandal because professional polygraph organizations outside of North America disagree with a technique favored by the APA--the organization and this technique have, therefore, been the subject of numerous articles in international psychology and criminalogy journals, not the stuff found on the web. This is old stuff from when I studied witness testimony, not current knowledge, but I was able to find a couple of sources.
Sorted. Now go and improve that article to make me look less silly.
HTH HAND
Phil
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/I%27m-disappointed-in-Wikipedia.-tf3894385.html#a11171... Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
The controversy is interesting, especially since it's all in academic journals (which I read by the busload), and there is other information. I think I might see what Elizabeth F. Loftus has to say on the subject, if anything.
Thanks.
KP
PS All our articles in this subject area (polygraphs, lie detection, etc.) are a boatload of crap and need references and serious work.
KP
On 6/17/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
I wouldn't go so far as to say it would kill off the project, but I believe it would be bad for it. We're not attempting to create "Who's Who in Academia", we're attempting to create an encyclopedia. By covering subjects which are barely of note, very little information exists for, and will be forgotten completely ten years from now, we are giving them undue weight simply by inclusion. That violates NPOV, which -is- a core principle.
Actually, IIRC we're supposed to be *the* encyclopaedia for any field, be it sadomasochism, zoology, and yes, academia. The standard for inclusion if you want to benchmark us against other encyclopaedias should not be "Would this be published in a general encyclopaedia?" but "Would this be published in any encyclopaedia, including one focused on the field of the subject?" I can imagine many of these subjects who are barely of note being published in an encyclopaedia of academia.
Johnleemk
Mangoe,
Just to correct the numbers, i said full professors. at most universities that's between 1/3 to 1/4 of the tenure track faculty. There are about 150 Research Universities, in the US; 500 each is 75,000. There is of course, the rest of the world. General estimate is that US = 1/2 the total faculty size at such universities. We can handle that. We can handle 10 times that, or 100 times that, as far as technology is concerned. What we need is the editors.
Thing is, we can handle as many notable people as there are, and we can set what level of notability we want in different areas of life. I am perfectly prepared to let those interested put as many [whatever] stars as they want using whatever criteria they want, as long as it's consistent enough so that it looks like they know what they're doing and they have some reliable basis to write the articles.
I'm not too concerned about the 21st century academics. Post google, they'll take care of themselves. What I really want is those from the previous 9 centuries. (or earlier in some parts of the world). I want to have every last one for whom documentation can be found enough to give the name and approximate date and subject and university and whatever they may have written. The last serious try was in 1574--see [[Conrad Gesner]] Technology has finally caught up. (As the size of academic institutions has grown approximately exponentially world wide, the dead do not greatly outnumber the living. I think the numbers would be about equal.) I think I could find the editors too, if they knew that their work wouldn't be destroyed on a whim.
I don't want to force you to enter them, but I want you to stop removing them when I enter them. How's that as a fair deal?
DGG
On 6/15/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/14/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Saying all university presidents are notable is just the first step towards a sane policy, and one which has i think been taken--saying all research university full professors are notable has also been consistently maintained at AfD. There are some things about which consensus does form in a sensible direction.
Well, if everyone in a certain position is notable, then we could go forth and say that all positions are notable. At any rate, there are some 1400 tenure and tenure-track faculty at UMD. Harvard has more. That makes hundreds of thousands "notable", just counting present faculty; the dead of course hugely outnumber them. The survival of the project relies upon the lack of interest most people have in entering these directories (for that is what they will largely be).
On Sat, 9 Jun 2007 21:52:39 +0800, "John Lee" johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have sources readily available on Google
There is nothing that says anyone is compelled to go and look for sources if the original author can't be bothered to do it themselves. Tagging with {{fact}} or {{unreferenced}} is reasonable, the person tagging may be completely unfamiliar with the subject and the authors of the article will be in a much better position to provide not just any old reference but a good, authoritative one.
Some editors - Uncle G springs to mind - specialise in rescuing crap articles on good subjects. Some specialise in identifying the crap articles. Some specialise in Wikignoming. There is room for all sorts.
Guy (JzG)
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have sources readily available on Google
There is nothing that says anyone is compelled to go and look for sources if the original author can't be bothered to do it themselves. Tagging with {{fact}} or {{unreferenced}} is reasonable, the person tagging may be completely unfamiliar with the subject and the authors of the article will be in a much better position to provide not just any old reference but a good, authoritative one.
I see this "I googled it and there were thousands of results so it's obviously [laziness/stupididty/evilitude] to tag it as unsourced" comment a lot. It's an annoying one - as you say, simply googling doesn't tell you what is and isn't a good source.
There was a discussion earlier about a Turkish academic, where "obviously" googling his name would give you plenty of sources and so it was utter folly to delete. Except... well, when you look at it, you get someone with a website and a moderately high internet profile because his papers get quoted and discussed. Most hits are in Turkish, a language we don't reasonably expect enwp editors to read.
And, so, you end up with... well, lots of hits, and you could slap some in as sources to confirm "yes, he exists, he is an academic, he writes in these fields". But would they be useful, meaningful references, or would it have all the practical utility of quoting a university staff list?
You can tell something doesn't have sources without needing to know anything about the topic. You can't always tell what is and isn't a decent source without knowing anything, though...
On 6/11/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to
looking
for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have
sources
readily available on Google
There is nothing that says anyone is compelled to go and look for sources if the original author can't be bothered to do it themselves. Tagging with {{fact}} or {{unreferenced}} is reasonable, the person tagging may be completely unfamiliar with the subject and the authors of the article will be in a much better position to provide not just any old reference but a good, authoritative one.
I see this "I googled it and there were thousands of results so it's obviously [laziness/stupididty/evilitude] to tag it as unsourced" comment a lot. It's an annoying one - as you say, simply googling doesn't tell you what is and isn't a good source.
There was a discussion earlier about a Turkish academic, where "obviously" googling his name would give you plenty of sources and so it was utter folly to delete. Except... well, when you look at it, you get someone with a website and a moderately high internet profile because his papers get quoted and discussed. Most hits are in Turkish, a language we don't reasonably expect enwp editors to read.
And, so, you end up with... well, lots of hits, and you could slap some in as sources to confirm "yes, he exists, he is an academic, he writes in these fields". But would they be useful, meaningful references, or would it have all the practical utility of quoting a university staff list?
You can tell something doesn't have sources without needing to know anything about the topic. You can't always tell what is and isn't a decent source without knowing anything, though...
I'm specifically talking about quotations, not garden variety assertions. It's remarkable how often the first Google result for a few phrases from a quote is a reliable source for said quote.
Johnleemk
On 6/11/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/06/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to
looking
for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have
sources
readily available on Google
There is nothing that says anyone is compelled to go and look for sources if the original author can't be bothered to do it themselves. Tagging with {{fact}} or {{unreferenced}} is reasonable, the person tagging may be completely unfamiliar with the subject and the authors of the article will be in a much better position to provide not just any old reference but a good, authoritative one.
I see this "I googled it and there were thousands of results so it's obviously [laziness/stupididty/evilitude] to tag it as unsourced" comment a lot. It's an annoying one - as you say, simply googling doesn't tell you what is and isn't a good source.
There was a discussion earlier about a Turkish academic, where "obviously" googling his name would give you plenty of sources and so it was utter folly to delete. Except... well, when you look at it, you get someone with a website and a moderately high internet profile because his papers get quoted and discussed. Most hits are in Turkish, a language we don't reasonably expect enwp editors to read.
And, so, you end up with... well, lots of hits, and you could slap some in as sources to confirm "yes, he exists, he is an academic, he writes in these fields". But would they be useful, meaningful references, or would it have all the practical utility of quoting a university staff list?
You can tell something doesn't have sources without needing to know anything about the topic. You can't always tell what is and isn't a decent source without knowing anything, though...
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Yes, English sources are preferred when available, but Turkish ones are perfectly acceptable for Turkish subjects. Policy doesn't force English sources where they don't exist -that would be systematic bias.
On 11/06/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, English sources are preferred when available, but Turkish ones are perfectly acceptable for Turkish subjects. Policy doesn't force English sources where they don't exist -that would be systematic bias.
...yes. But acceptability of sources can't magically make someone who can't read Turkish able to tell if a given article is usable as a "source" or not. Simply saying "there's lots of stuff in Turkish, some of it could be usable" does not a source provide.
At the end of the day, the "sources" (a conceptually bad name, but let's skip that) for an article have to be provided by someone who knows what they're talking about, and is willing to think about the matter for a while.
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 11/06/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, English sources are preferred when available, but Turkish ones are perfectly acceptable for Turkish subjects. Policy doesn't force English sources where they don't exist -that would be systematic bias.
...yes. But acceptability of sources can't magically make someone who can't read Turkish able to tell if a given article is usable as a "source" or not. Simply saying "there's lots of stuff in Turkish, some of it could be usable" does not a source provide.
At the end of the day, the "sources" (a conceptually bad name, but let's skip that) for an article have to be provided by someone who knows what they're talking about, and is willing to think about the matter for a while.
OK. Finding all the Turkish language material may not be enough to provide the actual verification, but what we need is that the material be verifiable. Verifiable is a somewhat lower standard than verified. What we don't want is for people to use "I could only find Turkish language material" as the sole excuse for deletion. Such an excuse has the same level of brilliancy as "I've never heard of it."
Ec
If nobody is willing to translate the Turkish, we don't need an article. When someone does the translation, they can create the article.
Andrew Gray wrote:
I see this "I googled it and there were thousands of results so it's obviously [laziness/stupididty/evilitude] to tag it as unsourced" comment a lot. It's an annoying one - as you say, simply googling doesn't tell you what is and isn't a good source.
What's more annoying is the complete lack of effort. Let me head off at the pass the "the onus is on the person who wants to include it" commentary - we're building an encyclopedia, and if you see a statement you're unsure of, and you can't take a minute to see if you can solve it, you're simply not helping.
It's lazy, and it simply wastes everyone's time.
-Jeff
On 6/11/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Sat, 9 Jun 2007 21:52:39 +0800, "John Lee" johnleemk@gmail.com wrote:
As I anticipated, the only reason the article was deleted was a lack of sources. That's perfectly fine.
What's not perfectly fine is how lazy people are when it comes to looking for sources. I often see quotations tagged with {{fact}} that have
sources
readily available on Google
There is nothing that says anyone is compelled to go and look for sources if the original author can't be bothered to do it themselves. Tagging with {{fact}} or {{unreferenced}} is reasonable, the person tagging may be completely unfamiliar with the subject and the authors of the article will be in a much better position to provide not just any old reference but a good, authoritative one.
Some editors - Uncle G springs to mind - specialise in rescuing crap articles on good subjects. Some specialise in identifying the crap articles. Some specialise in Wikignoming. There is room for all sorts.
This being a volunteer project, that's to be expected. I was criticising the attitude of volunteers who could contribute a lot more if they only took a couple of seconds to Google something. I'm not talking about obscure things; I have personally found sources for a variety of quotations from Google, and all reliable ones - often the first hit for a quote is something like a New York Times article (let's say) carrying the quote. While perhaps not the most desirable source, it's better than nothing, and the marginal effort required is minimal. I'm just saying that volunteers should spend some time doing a minimum of due diligence before tagging. Obviously they shouldn't be required to, but the returns are huge, and the costs are small, so why not?
Johnleemk
On 6/9/07, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
No, not for any of the stuff I'm getting into fights about lately, like cliques and BADSITES. But for one of its article deletions.
You see, I was working on edits to one of my personal websites, in this case one about e-mail formatting and related technical and cultural issues ( http://mailformat.dan.info/ ). I decided, in the course of talking about forwarded messages, to refer to the concept of "glurge", which is the sort of sickeningly-sweet motivational stuff (Norman Vincent Peale - ish) that gets regularly forwarded around the net. Usually when I do something like that, I like to stick in an external link to some place that describes what I'm talking about, and lately Wikipedia is almost always my first choice to try to find one.
If your purpose is to link somewhere that describes a term, Wiktionary would be a better choice than Wikipedia.