Some time ago, I bemoaned the fact that our poor treatment of webcomics topics had led to a fork, and that we were going to lose webcomics contributors.
For those who did not believe me, I point to http://www.websnark.com/ archives/2005/10/on_the_other_ha_13.html
Websnark is one of the three big sites in webcomics commentary. The writer of that entry, Eric Burns, has an article, his blog has an article, he maintains two comics, and writes for both of the other two big sites - Comixpedia and the Webcomics Examiner. He is not an idiot. He knows what he is talking about on webcomics.
And he's right here. Deletions are being carried out by people who know nothing about the subject. The opinions of people who do (I will admit, I am referring to myself - but go ahead and see [[User:Snowspinner/Webcomics]] if you like - my credentials are existent here) are being counted the same as the clueless. Explanations of notability are disregarded - people are making the assertion that webcomics that are a part of professional syndicates - the webcomic equivalent of KIng Features - aren't notable. When linked to the site of a syndicate that clearly lists a comic among its members, they claim this is not a reliable source.
I don't know how many times I can continue to put this in new and innovative ways. Deletion is broken. We are making mistakes. Our mistakes are costing us contributors. They are costing us good contributors.
We need a solution here. Not hand-wringing and a conviction that we should come up with a solution. We need a damn solution, and we need it back before Comixpedia split off in the first place.
Here's a first stab - people with documentable credentials in an area that would, in the eyes of a reasonable layman, qualify them to make a decision on the importance of a topic will be allowed to speedy keep articles in the area of their credentials.
-Snowspinner
On 10/25/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I don't know how many times I can continue to put this in new and innovative ways. Deletion is broken. We are making mistakes. Our mistakes are costing us contributors. They are costing us good contributors.
Oh let's just shut down AfD for a month and see if the wiki explodes. Honestly I don't think it would even come near. There just aren't enough articles involved for it to impact the wiki much (many times more rubbish is speedied daily) and we shouldn't be driving away good editors.
Losing contributors? Excuse me? I am a comixpedia.orghttp://comixpedia.orgadiminstrator and a wikipedian at the same time. I saw some wikipedians and they are certainally not abandoing Wikipedia. I may not edit Wikipedia as often as I used to, but in the first place; all I know is webcomics and a little bit about open source software. The things is...you can backport some of the article suitable to become a wikipedia article. Some of our article are even more comperhensive than the one at Wikipedia but not certainally all. We save some webcomic on wikipedia article that may not be even "notable" so we are the dumping ground for webcomic that got deleted from wikipedia.
Yes, we are also licensed under the GNUFDL. If you guys decided that you want a certain webcomic article back, you might find them at Comixpedia. On 10/24/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/25/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I don't know how many times I can continue to put this in new and innovative ways. Deletion is broken. We are making mistakes. Our mistakes are costing us contributors. They are costing us good contributors.
Oh let's just shut down AfD for a month and see if the wiki explodes. Honestly I don't think it would even come near. There just aren't enough articles involved for it to impact the wiki much (many times more rubbish is speedied daily) and we shouldn't be driving away good editors. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
We can backport, sure. And they'll be deleted. Really - have a look at the deletion debates Eric is talking about there. They're appalling. In particular, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Able_and_Baker_%282nd_nomination%29 is galling.
-Snowspinner
On Oct 24, 2005, at 7:33 PM, Han Dao wrote:
Losing contributors? Excuse me? I am a comixpedia.orghttp://comixpedia.orgadiminstrator and a wikipedian at the same time. I saw some wikipedians and they are certainally not abandoing Wikipedia. I may not edit Wikipedia as often as I used to, but in the first place; all I know is webcomics and a little bit about open source software. The things is...you can backport some of the article suitable to become a wikipedia article. Some of our article are even more comperhensive than the one at Wikipedia but not certainally all. We save some webcomic on wikipedia article that may not be even "notable" so we are the dumping ground for webcomic that got deleted from wikipedia.
Yes, we are also licensed under the GNUFDL. If you guys decided that you want a certain webcomic article back, you might find them at Comixpedia. On 10/24/05, Tony Sidaway f.crdfa@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/25/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
I don't know how many times I can continue to put this in new and innovative ways. Deletion is broken. We are making mistakes. Our mistakes are costing us contributors. They are costing us good contributors.
Oh let's just shut down AfD for a month and see if the wiki explodes. Honestly I don't think it would even come near. There just aren't enough articles involved for it to impact the wiki much (many times more rubbish is speedied daily) and we shouldn't be driving away good editors. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 10/24/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
We can backport, sure. And they'll be deleted. Really - have a look at the deletion debates Eric is talking about there. They're appalling. In particular, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Able_and_Baker_%282nd_nomination%29 is galling.
-Snowspinner
Don't you think opinions on this matter are eventually going to change? I'd be more concerned in the near term with making sure that we keep a good relationship with those running the webcomics forks. Make sure that any articles on webcomics that are deleted from here are transwikied to the forks. And in appropriate places where those comics are at least mentioned, to link to the forks.
You're an admin, so it's not like you can't access the articles to copy them over. I'm fairly confident that opinions on this matter are going to change. Then we can just copy the articles back.
Anthony
On 25 Oct 2005, at 00:36, Snowspinner wrote:
We can backport, sure. And they'll be deleted. Really - have a look at the deletion debates Eric is talking about there. They're appalling. In particular, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Able_and_Baker_%282nd_nomination%29 is galling.
I dont know anything at all about webcomics, but I recognise the notability standards problem from elsewhere; people argue that breweries should produce so much beer a year to be notable and other such arbitrary decisions. But I dont see anything in the article that establishes notability (this may be because it has been fighting deletion of course), but something that shows how it forms part of the history or culture or influenced or was influenced by other things would help; lists of characters and so on are just not interesting. Its not linked from any other articles. No notable cultural item stands in isolation; the links from it are just words - potato, vending machine etc.
(Actually it should be linked from Dayfree Press - just fixing that).
This could all be due to its fought over state, but show me another article that is what it should look like.
Justinc
On 10/24/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
On 25 Oct 2005, at 00:36, Snowspinner wrote:
We can backport, sure. And they'll be deleted. Really - have a look at the deletion debates Eric is talking about there. They're appalling. In particular, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Able_and_Baker_%282nd_nomination%29 is galling.
I dont know anything at all about webcomics, but I recognise the notability standards problem from elsewhere; people argue that breweries should produce so much beer a year to be notable and other such arbitrary decisions. But I dont see anything in the article that establishes notability (this may be because it has been fighting deletion of course), but something that shows how it forms part of the history or culture or influenced or was influenced by other things would help; lists of characters and so on are just not interesting. Its not linked from any other articles. No notable cultural item stands in isolation; the links from it are just words - potato, vending machine etc.
It looks perfectly notable to me, and Snowspinner would have had my vote had he not fought so hard to get me banned from voting.
Anthony
The problem is that most webcomics that are added into the encyclopedia are usually non-notable. So editors tend to vote delete because most will be non notable.
On 10/24/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 24, 2005, at 8:07 PM, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
It looks perfectly notable to me, and Snowspinner would have had my vote had he not fought so hard to get me banned from voting.
Well sniped.
-Snowspinner _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Han Dao wrote:
The problem is that most webcomics that are added into the encyclopedia are usually non-notable. So editors tend to vote delete because most will be non notable.
You talk about notability like it's some objective thing. Where are you getting this standard from?
Ryan
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Ryan Delaney wrote:
Han Dao wrote:
The problem is that most webcomics that are added into the encyclopedia are usually non-notable. So editors tend to vote delete because most will be non notable.
You talk about notability like it's some objective thing. Where are you getting this standard from?
I agree. Arguing about "notability" is often based on "I have(n't) heard of this, so it must be (non-)notable."
A better argument (although all arguments about notability lead to the same greased incline) is the Principle of Least Astonishment. That is:
* Would you be surprised to see this article in an encyclopedia? * Would you be surprised to not see this article in an encyclopedia?
The best argument of all (not that there are any good ones) is demonstrating how/why the article on X is any different to any other W, where W and X are in the set Y. If Y has size 2,000,000 and X is no different from the other 1,999,999 members of Y, then it is pointless to have an article on X. If however X is one of a much smaller subset of Y (eg. 20 instead of 2,000,000) or is somehow unique amongst Y (apart from the "every snowflake is unique" definition of uniqueness), then it makes sense to have an article on X (or at least the smaller subset).
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
Han Dao wrote:
The problem is that most webcomics that are added into the encyclopedia are usually non-notable. So editors tend to vote delete because most will be non notable.
Well put! Having determined that most webcomics are non-notable, it is safe to assume that one need not look at the particular contribution to verify that it is non-notable. A rule-abiding decision to delete should be disturbed by the introduction of real facts.
Ec
That why I recommended that someone to define the notability standard for webcomics. A webcomic that meet notability shouldn't just relies on Alexa ranking and google all the time but use it to determine if it seem notable. If they do not meet the Alexa ranking. Than it time to consult notable webcomics resources such as the blogger Websnark, magazine like Webcomic Examiners, and Comixpedia.com http://Comixpedia.com. If they are mentioned at any one of those site, than it must be vaguely notable. One should not however consult comixpedia.org http://comixpedia.org because it allow everyone'a webcomics thus making it useless to determine notability. Lastly, consult a trusted wikipedian you knew is a webcomic expert to see if they consider it notable.
Alexa ranking tend to be extremely inaccurate for determine how popular it is and google don't tell you the whole story. It is important to do more research than that in the case of webcomics to see if they are indeed notable.
On 10/27/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Han Dao wrote:
The problem is that most webcomics that are added into the encyclopedia
are
usually non-notable. So editors tend to vote delete because most will be
non
notable.
Well put! Having determined that most webcomics are non-notable, it is safe to assume that one need not look at the particular contribution to verify that it is non-notable. A rule-abiding decision to delete should be disturbed by the introduction of real facts.
Ec
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On 25 Oct 2005, at 01:07, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
It looks perfectly notable to me, and Snowspinner would have had my vote had he not fought so hard to get me banned from voting.
Well explain to me why you think it is notable then. I am open minded, it just isnt clear as an outsider that it is.
You have until I rewrite [[Lentil]], which is notable, but you cant really tell that from reading it either (although less likely to be deleted).
Justinc
On 10/24/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
On 25 Oct 2005, at 01:07, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
It looks perfectly notable to me, and Snowspinner would have had my vote had he not fought so hard to get me banned from voting.
Well explain to me why you think it is notable then. I am open minded, it just isnt clear as an outsider that it is.
Well, I think all web comics are notable, so I doubt my reasoning is going to change your mind.
You have until I rewrite [[Lentil]], which is notable, but you cant
really tell that from reading it either (although less likely to be deleted).
Justinc
On 25 Oct 2005, at 01:35, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Well, I think all web comics are notable, so I doubt my reasoning is going to change your mind.
I dont have an opinion either way. All I said was that it wasnt immediately apparent from the article to an outsider.
Ok if you cant do that why are all webcomics notable?
If you cant convince me (a broadish inclusionist really, and very open minded) then no wonder you cant convince the people on afd.
Justinc
On 10/24/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
On 25 Oct 2005, at 01:35, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
Well, I think all web comics are notable, so I doubt my reasoning is going to change your mind.
I dont have an opinion either way. All I said was that it wasnt immediately apparent from the article to an outsider.
It's immediately apparent that it's a web comic (at least, it is after clicking the links to confirm that it is one). For me, that's enough.
Ok if you cant do that why are all webcomics notable?
Because Wikipedia has no space requirements. We have plenty of room to include all webcomics. To choose to include some, but not others, would allow us to make a statement about what is worthwhile and what isn't. It would violate NPOV. Further, the only people who are going to come across the article are those who are specifically looking for it. Keeping the article in the encyclopedia provides useful information to those people, and doesn't hurt anyone else. If any webcomics are notable, then all webcomics are notable.
If you cant convince me (a broadish inclusionist really, and very
open minded) then no wonder you cant convince the people on afd.
I can't convince the people on afd at least in part because I'm not allowed to make comments on afd.
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/24/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
<snip>
Ok if you cant do that why are all webcomics notable?
Because Wikipedia has no space requirements. We have plenty of room to include all webcomics. To choose to include some, but not others, would allow us to make a statement about what is worthwhile and what isn't. It would violate NPOV. Further, the only people who are going to come across the article are those who are specifically looking for it. Keeping the article in the encyclopedia provides useful information to those people, and doesn't hurt anyone else. If any webcomics are notable, then all webcomics are notable.
By your logic: If any people are notable, then all people are notable.
Excuse me while I write articles on Anthony DiPierro, Justin Cormack, and the rest.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 10/25/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/24/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
<snip> >> Ok if you cant do that why are all webcomics notable? > > > Because Wikipedia has no space requirements. We have plenty of room to > include all webcomics. To choose to include some, but not others, would > allow us to make a statement about what is worthwhile and what isn't. It > would violate NPOV. Further, the only people who are going to come across > the article are those who are specifically looking for it. Keeping the > article in the encyclopedia provides useful information to those people, and > doesn't hurt anyone else. If any webcomics are notable, then all webcomics > are notable. >
By your logic: If any people are notable, then all people are notable.
Excuse me while I write articles on Anthony DiPierro, Justin Cormack, and the rest.
If you can find third party, verifiable information on them, I look forward to reading your articles.
-- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
On 25 Oct 2005, at 16:35, Michael Turley wrote:
By your logic: If any people are notable, then all people are notable.
Excuse me while I write articles on Anthony DiPierro, Justin Cormack, and the rest.
If you can find third party, verifiable information on them, I look forward to reading your articles.
Well I know exactly what third party verifiable information about me is out there (well I hope I do). It would produce an amazingly incoherent article: odd spells alternating long and short in Universities, directorship of a Russian restaurant, couple of rather dull drivers in the Linux kernel, old Usenet postings about food, edits to wikipedia, strangely inconsistent official addresses, detailed positionings in space and time based on my photos in Commons, place and time of birth, fact that closest relative with an article on wikipedia is my uncle, several pictures under free licenses.
Actually that list looks alarmingly like some of the articles we do have on wikipedia, random collections of facts without a narrative and organizing thread to make them into really good articles.
Justinc
OK, so since the "Deletion again" thread became "Let's rehash the same old and really kind of beside the point 'should we have an article on everyone' argument," let's try again.
Current ideas I've seen on how to fix the Broken that is AfD
1) Shut it down for a month and see if the Wiki explodes 2) Allow experts to speedy keep 3) Continually let every discussion on the matter get derailed while good contributors leave the project
Did I miss anything?
-Phil Sandifer (Snowspinner)
Define the notability standard for every topics that need such a standard like webcomics. So if a webcomic was AfD, one have to check the webcomic notability guideline to see if they meet. On 10/25/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
OK, so since the "Deletion again" thread became "Let's rehash the same old and really kind of beside the point 'should we have an article on everyone' argument," let's try again.
Current ideas I've seen on how to fix the Broken that is AfD
- Shut it down for a month and see if the Wiki explodes
- Allow experts to speedy keep
- Continually let every discussion on the matter get derailed while
good contributors leave the project
Did I miss anything?
-Phil Sandifer (Snowspinner) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I think that if a few regular editors want to keep it should be kept. Their opinion should veto any number of delete votes. I don't mean to include anyone who blindly votes keep however.
Fred
On Oct 25, 2005, at 3:34 PM, Snowspinner wrote:
OK, so since the "Deletion again" thread became "Let's rehash the same old and really kind of beside the point 'should we have an article on everyone' argument," let's try again.
Current ideas I've seen on how to fix the Broken that is AfD
- Shut it down for a month and see if the Wiki explodes
- Allow experts to speedy keep
- Continually let every discussion on the matter get derailed
while good contributors leave the project
Did I miss anything?
-Phil Sandifer (Snowspinner) _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 10/26/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
I think that if a few regular editors want to keep it should be kept. Their opinion should veto any number of delete votes. I don't mean to include anyone who blindly votes keep however.
Fred
A few would have a near veto anyway. If a few is 4 then 8 delete votes would be needed to remove it.
-- geni
I don't care about the number of votes. If an expert can assert it meets notability criteria it should be kept. We should try to get such criteria for as many types of articles as possible.
--Mgm
On 10/26/05, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/26/05, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
I think that if a few regular editors want to keep it should be kept. Their opinion should veto any number of delete votes. I don't mean to include anyone who blindly votes keep however.
Fred
A few would have a near veto anyway. If a few is 4 then 8 delete votes would be needed to remove it.
-- geni _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 10/26/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
I don't care about the number of votes. If an expert can assert it meets notability criteria it should be kept.
Will people be provideing formal signed documents to the fondation showing that they indeed are experts in the fields they claim?
We should try to get such criteria for as many types of articles as possible.
--Mgm
Tends not to work because the include everthingists tend not to agree.
-- geni
On 10/25/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/24/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
<snip> >> Ok if you cant do that why are all webcomics notable? > > > Because Wikipedia has no space requirements. We have plenty of room to > include all webcomics. To choose to include some, but not others, would > allow us to make a statement about what is worthwhile and what isn't. It > would violate NPOV. Further, the only people who are going to come across > the article are those who are specifically looking for it. Keeping the > article in the encyclopedia provides useful information to those people, and > doesn't hurt anyone else. If any webcomics are notable, then all webcomics > are notable. >
By your logic: If any people are notable, then all people are notable.
By my logic all people are notable, yes.
Excuse me while I write articles on Anthony DiPierro, Justin Cormack,
and the rest.
Notability is different from verifiability (and no original research), and in any case non-famous (living) people have a legal right to privacy. So if you can find public, verifiable information about me or Justin in respectable secondary sources, I personally think it should be included in Wikipedia.
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Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/25/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/24/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
<snip>
Ok if you cant do that why are all webcomics notable?
Because Wikipedia has no space requirements. We have plenty of room to include all webcomics. To choose to include some, but not others, would allow us to make a statement about what is worthwhile and what isn't. It would violate NPOV. Further, the only people who are going to come
across
the article are those who are specifically looking for it. Keeping the article in the encyclopedia provides useful information to those people,
and
doesn't hurt anyone else. If any webcomics are notable, then all
webcomics
are notable.
By your logic: If any people are notable, then all people are notable.
By my logic all people are notable, yes.
Excuse me while I write articles on Anthony DiPierro, Justin Cormack,
and the rest.
Notability is different from verifiability (and no original research), and in any case non-famous (living) people have a legal right to privacy. So if you can find public, verifiable information about me or Justin in respectable secondary sources, I personally think it should be included in Wikipedia.
Can you find public, verifiable information about these webcomics in respectable secondary sources?
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 26 Oct 2005, at 09:42, Alphax wrote:
Can you find public, verifiable information about these webcomics in respectable secondary sources?
There is a problem that there is a systemic bias against (for example) academic and journalistic reporting on new forms of culture (witness the coverage of computer games in the mainstream press). So I would support being more lenient in these cases if necessary, and allowing argument supported by primary sources if done well, and not pushing political points but being descriptive or linking related threads (post apocalyptic storylines; Manga characterisation, fierce rabbits or whatever).
But given that the articles mostly read as:
'''Animal Farm'' is a [[web comic]] with many readers.
{{spoiler}}
==Characters== *''Napoleon'' is a [[pig]] who takes over the [[farm]]
Its all pretty irrelevant. I joined in this thread trying to get an idea of whether I should join in AfD etc to support these articles, but have not yet got any reason to.
Justinc
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Justin Cormack wrote:
On 26 Oct 2005, at 09:42, Alphax wrote:
Can you find public, verifiable information about these webcomics in respectable secondary sources?
There is a problem that there is a systemic bias against (for example) academic and journalistic reporting on new forms of culture (witness the coverage of computer games in the mainstream press).
There are established magazines and other media sources which routinely talk about computer games.
So I would support being more lenient in these cases if necessary, and allowing argument supported by primary sources if done well, and not pushing political points but being descriptive or linking related threads (post apocalyptic storylines; Manga characterisation, fierce rabbits or whatever).
"Is noted outside of the community it originated" is one of the things I tried to pin to the "notable" tag (foolish me). By that I mean: "has received attention outside of its own fandom".
So, a website which sells widgets and is unknown outside of the widget community should not have an article; a website which is reasonably well-known in the widget community should be mentioned in the article on widgets; and a website which sells widgets, well known within the widget community, /which has been Slashdotted/, could have it's own article.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 26 Oct 2005, at 12:15, Alphax wrote:
So, a website which sells widgets and is unknown outside of the widget community should not have an article; a website which is reasonably well-known in the widget community should be mentioned in the article on widgets; and a website which sells widgets, well known within the widget community, /which has been Slashdotted/, could have it's own article.
I am prepared to admit that there are things that should be well known outside their community, and that a good and interesting article with real links (that show the connections to the things outside the community) could do that. Slashdottings after all happen when someone inside the community notices that the company has announced a new superwidget. Or the annual report might mention something of more general importance, perhaps the widget company was the largest financer of a politician. These things are on the border of primary research, but are fact based and interesting. Real links outside widgetspace make things notable and interesting.
Justinc
"Alphax" alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote in message news:435F6564.4010207@gmail.com... [snip]
"Is noted outside of the community it originated" is one of the things I tried to pin to the "notable" tag (foolish me). By that I mean: "has received attention outside of its own fandom". So, a website which sells widgets and is unknown outside of the widget community should not have an article; a website which is reasonably well-known in the widget community should be mentioned in the article on widgets; and a website which sells widgets, well known within the widget community, /which has been Slashdotted/, could have it's own article.
The problem here is that there are many people/things which are extremely interesting but---until we write about them---all but unknown **outside their particular subject community**.
For example, I doubt if I could name half-a-dozen Particle Physicists. I'll bet you there are ten times that many who deserve an article of their own, but you'd be hard put to it to convince some of the hard-core AFD deletionists of it, because they simply vote "nn, never heard of them" without even giving the appearance of reading the article.
What I can't understand is that I come to an encyclopaedia wanting to find things I **don't** already know about, not endless regurgitation of stuff I already knew. So rejecting an article on the grounds that I don't already know the subject matter seems nonsensical to me.
Am I alone?
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Phil Boswell wrote:
"Alphax" alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote in message news:435F6564.4010207@gmail.com... [snip]
"Is noted outside of the community it originated" is one of the things I tried to pin to the "notable" tag (foolish me). By that I mean: "has received attention outside of its own fandom". So, a website which sells widgets and is unknown outside of the widget community should not have an article; a website which is reasonably well-known in the widget community should be mentioned in the article on widgets; and a website which sells widgets, well known within the widget community, /which has been Slashdotted/, could have it's own article.
The problem here is that there are many people/things which are extremely interesting but---until we write about them---all but unknown **outside their particular subject community**.
For example, I doubt if I could name half-a-dozen Particle Physicists. I'll bet you there are ten times that many who deserve an article of their own, but you'd be hard put to it to convince some of the hard-core AFD deletionists of it, because they simply vote "nn, never heard of them" without even giving the appearance of reading the article.
Alright, I admit it, it's a stupid idea.
What I can't understand is that I come to an encyclopaedia wanting to find things I **don't** already know about, not endless regurgitation of stuff I already knew. So rejecting an article on the grounds that I don't already know the subject matter seems nonsensical to me.
Am I alone?
No. It's just difficult to get one's head around all this...
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 26/10/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
For example, I doubt if I could name half-a-dozen Particle Physicists. I'll bet you there are ten times that many who deserve an article of their own, but you'd be hard put to it to convince some of the hard-core AFD deletionists of it, because they simply vote "nn, never heard of them" without even giving the appearance of reading the article.
Today's VFD zen: the first twelve of fifteen entries on this days page are nominated simply as "NN, D. ~~~~" (and there's more after that). I swear this becomes self-parody sometimes...
I'm half-tempted to nominate a short but reasonably notable bio I wrote this afternoon for deletion, simply to see if anyone would concur with "nn, d" ([[Fleury Mesplet]], eighteenth century French printer with silly name = obscure), but I fear that it might be a little obviously Making A Point.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
On 10/26/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Today's VFD zen: the first twelve of fifteen entries on this days page are nominated simply as "NN, D. ~~~~" (and there's more after that). I swear this becomes self-parody sometimes...
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/ComCat
TD
On 10/26/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/10/05, Phil Boswell phil.boswell@gmail.com wrote:
For example, I doubt if I could name half-a-dozen Particle Physicists. I'll bet you there are ten times that many who deserve an article of their own, but you'd be hard put to it to convince some of the hard-core AFD deletionists of it, because they simply vote "nn, never heard of them" without even giving the appearance of reading the article.
Today's VFD zen: the first twelve of fifteen entries on this days page are nominated simply as "NN, D. ~~~~" (and there's more after that). I swear this becomes self-parody sometimes...
I'm half-tempted to nominate a short but reasonably notable bio I wrote this afternoon for deletion, simply to see if anyone would concur with "nn, d" ([[Fleury Mesplet]], eighteenth century French printer with silly name = obscure), but I fear that it might be a little obviously Making A Point.
Be careful, you might just get your article deleted.
And if it did get deleted, you'd be swarmed with users who don't actually care a whit about content saying "KD, valid AfD" in the undeletion forum. After all, they've voted themselves a consensus that says undeletion is about _process_, not _content_.
Then you'd have the "enforcement admins" camping the spawn... er, keeping the article title on their watchlists so they could be the first to speedy delete it as a recreation, and they'll even cite you the Wikipedia Revised Code reference as they do it.
And if you're really unlucky, you'll have a wikistalker editor or admin watching your further contributions to make sure you don't try to insert that deleted content in to a related article! Consensus said delete! How dare you consider trying to find a useful place for your work!
I simply cannot imagine a plausible end to this nonsense at this time.
Knowing that deletion is easy power, and creation is powerful but difficult work, imagine where the teenaged populists tend to congregate. -- Michael Turley User:Unfocused
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Michael Turley wrote: <snip>
I simply cannot imagine a plausible end to this nonsense at this time.
I can. Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
On 10/26/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
I'm half-tempted to nominate a short but reasonably notable bio I wrote this afternoon for deletion, simply to see if anyone would concur with "nn, d" ([[Fleury Mesplet]], eighteenth century French printer with silly name = obscure), but I fear that it might be a little obviously Making A Point.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
There was an article about a famous professor that was copied directly from a magazine article in Vanity Fair. It was nominated for deletion and received quite a few "Delete. Vanity" votes (I guess it *was* an article in *Vanity* Fair. It eventually was deleted as a copyvio and several months later recreated as a non-copyvio.
Andrew Gray wrote:
Today's VFD zen: the first twelve of fifteen entries on this days page are nominated simply as "NN, D. ~~~~" (and there's more after that). I swear this becomes self-parody sometimes...
Just voted blanket "keep" on all of them, and am awaiting the inevitable accusation of WP:POINT. Nevermind that I probably spent more effort on my votes than the nominator did....
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Just voted blanket "keep" on all of them, and am awaiting the inevitable accusation of WP:POINT.
It isn't hard to prove
Nevermind that I probably spent more effort on my votes than the nominator did....
Unlikely. Nomitateing involves: 1)finding the article. This has been made easy for you 2)typeing {{Subst:ADF}} a the top of the page 3a) If you are me looking up the instructions on how to list something 4)typeing in reason 5)listing.
So the person at a minium edited 3 pages. How many did you edit?
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Nevermind that I probably spent more effort on my votes than the nominator did....
Unlikely. Nomitateing involves: 1)finding the article. This has been made easy for you 2)typeing {{Subst:ADF}} a the top of the page 3a) If you are me looking up the instructions on how to list something 4)typeing in reason 5)listing.
So the person at a minium edited 3 pages. How many did you edit?
One edit for each VfD, obviously, but I don't see how the number of edits one has to make in the course of sticking "NN, D" on a page makes "NN, D" any more meaningful. Should my vote be disregarded because I didn't put enough effort into provide adequate evidence that I'd considered the case and had a valid reason for voting the way I did? If so, I would gladly withdraw those poorly-supported votes I made since that's exactly the thing I was complaining about in the first place. A policy like that would remove the whole basis of my objection.
As it is there's probably one or two of those articles that I will be going back and retracting my "keeps" for based on other peoples' more detailed comments in response to these nominations. But those "keeps" were IMO a reasonable default reaction to this kind of nonsense.
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
geni wrote:
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Nevermind that I probably spent more effort on my votes than the nominator did....
Unlikely. Nomitateing involves: 1)finding the article. This has been made easy for you 2)typeing {{Subst:ADF}} a the top of the page 3a) If you are me looking up the instructions on how to list something 4)typeing in reason 5)listing.
So the person at a minium edited 3 pages. How many did you edit?
One edit for each VfD, obviously, but I don't see how the number of edits one has to make in the course of sticking "NN, D" on a page makes "NN, D" any more meaningful. Should my vote be disregarded because I didn't put enough effort into provide adequate evidence that I'd considered the case and had a valid reason for voting the way I did? If so, I would gladly withdraw those poorly-supported votes I made since that's exactly the thing I was complaining about in the first place. A policy like that would remove the whole basis of my objection.
No it shoulds be dissregarded because WP:POINT. I take it you conceed that the nominator did in fact take more effort to nominate than you did to vote.
As it is there's probably one or two of those articles that I will be going back and retracting my "keeps" for based on other peoples' more detailed comments in response to these nominations. But those "keeps" were IMO a reasonable default reaction to this kind of nonsense.
Can you prove it is nonsense? Today hasn't been the best day for wikipedia running times. Listing things on AFD under those conditions is a pain.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
One edit for each VfD, obviously, but I don't see how the number of edits one has to make in the course of sticking "NN, D" on a page makes "NN, D" any more meaningful. Should my vote be disregarded because I didn't put enough effort into provide adequate evidence that I'd considered the case and had a valid reason for voting the way I did? If so, I would gladly withdraw those poorly-supported votes I made since that's exactly the thing I was complaining about in the first place. A policy like that would remove the whole basis of my objection.
No it shoulds be dissregarded because WP:POINT. I take it you conceed that the nominator did in fact take more effort to nominate than you did to vote.
Can we disregard ComCat's nominations in the same vein, then? My point is that the number of clicks isn't relevant to the amount of effort the nomination itself reflects. If I'd cast my votes using an elabourate system of voice-to-speech hex editing via a telnet session, or whatever, that doesn't make what I wrote any more or less valid.
As it is there's probably one or two of those articles that I will be going back and retracting my "keeps" for based on other peoples' more detailed comments in response to these nominations. But those "keeps" were IMO a reasonable default reaction to this kind of nonsense.
Can you prove it is nonsense? Today hasn't been the best day for wikipedia running times. Listing things on AFD under those conditions is a pain.
"NN, D" provides no information on which to make a case. And if Wikipedia's sluggishness is irrelevant, once an edit window is open there isn't any further communication with the webserver until "save changes" is clicked. There's plenty of time to type up a justification for one's vote. If there isn't time for other reasons, then why not wait until there _is_ time? There isn't a deadline.
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Can we disregard ComCat's nominations in the same vein, then?
No becuase they don't appear to violate WP:POINT.
My point is that the number of clicks isn't relevant to the amount of effort the nomination itself reflects. If I'd cast my votes using an elabourate system of voice-to-speech hex editing via a telnet session, or whatever, that doesn't make what I wrote any more or less valid.
However it would show that you cared rather a lot (unless you had a less complex method of accessing the net in which case it shows you are wierd.
"NN, D" provides no information on which to make a case. And if Wikipedia's sluggishness is irrelevant, once an edit window is open there isn't any further communication with the webserver until "save changes" is clicked. There's plenty of time to type up a justification for one's vote. If there isn't time for other reasons, then why not wait until there _is_ time? There isn't a deadline.
Doing anything when Wikipedia is sluggish shows you care. You know if you want to encorage debate on AFD how about debateing. Go through and comment rather than voteing. Decide that for a time peroid (say a month) you are not going to vote only comment. Encourage others to the same.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Can we disregard ComCat's nominations in the same vein, then?
No becuase they don't appear to violate WP:POINT.
A mass copy-and-paste nomination of articles for deletion without providing any justification isn't disruptive? IMO you've got some odd standards for disruption, considering you once warned me I might be blocked for disruptiveness when I proposed an policy change here on the mailing list for increasing the duration of AfDs.
Doing anything when Wikipedia is sluggish shows you care. You know if you want to encorage debate on AFD how about debateing. Go through and comment rather than voteing. Decide that for a time peroid (say a month) you are not going to vote only comment. Encourage others to the same.
I've now gone through all of my ComCat-nomination votes and expanded on them with more extensive comments. Turns out that my initial instincts were completely correct, after due reconsideration all of my votes stayed "keep" (with one exception where I mistook a "NN,D" _vote_ by ComCat as a _nomination_ instead - the actual nomination was reasonable). Plenty of fodder for debate there, and plenty of effort spent to back up my position. Now may I complain about the lack of justification the nominations provided?
Here they are, for the record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Bayonne_High_Sc... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Summit_Middle_S... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Grove_School http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Eugene_F._Prove... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mike_Brady_%28m... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tim_Brady (this is the one I misread) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/George_Alexande... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Counting_coo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Horace_Mann_Ele... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/High_School_tra... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Spooky_Kid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/RealPlane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Habbo_Paper
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
A mass copy-and-paste nomination of articles for deletion without providing any justification isn't disruptive?
However I can't show that they are doing it to make a point
IMO you've got some odd standards for disruption, considering you once warned me I might be blocked for disruptiveness when I proposed an policy change here on the mailing list for increasing the duration of AfDs.
I wasn't exactly being serious. While I can come up with some say "interesting" interpritations of the rules I don't I could really get you under the dissruption clause for that.
I've now gone through all of my ComCat-nomination votes and expanded on them with more extensive comments. Turns out that my initial instincts were completely correct, after due reconsideration all of my votes stayed "keep" (with one exception where I mistook a "NN,D" _vote_ by ComCat as a _nomination_ instead - the actual nomination was reasonable). Plenty of fodder for debate there, and plenty of effort spent to back up my position.
I'd bet tempted to go a stage further and not vote at all.
Now may I complain about the lack of justification the nominations provided?
In theory RFC however it would be likely yo become messy.
Here they are, for the record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Bayonne_High_Sc... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Summit_Middle_S... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Grove_School
I see no reason to mess with the ritual that is school AFds aparenty most of those takeing part are consenting adults.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
A mass copy-and-paste nomination of articles for deletion without providing any justification isn't disruptive?
However I can't show that they are doing it to make a point
And you can't in my case either, because I really do have a reason why I think those nominations should fail to delete those articles. I don't vote "keep" unless I mean it.
Anyway, this back and forth POINTing isn't really furthering the discussion of AfD's problems. If you want to "get" me under some rule or another, go ahead; I won't argue it here.
I've now gone through all of my ComCat-nomination votes and expanded on them with more extensive comments. Turns out that my initial instincts were completely correct, after due reconsideration all of my votes stayed "keep" (with one exception where I mistook a "NN,D" _vote_ by ComCat as a _nomination_ instead - the actual nomination was reasonable). Plenty of fodder for debate there, and plenty of effort spent to back up my position.
I'd bet tempted to go a stage further and not vote at all.
Why shouldn't I vote when I've got perfectly good reasons for casting a vote? I really don't think that those AfDs should result in "delete", and so I voted that they should result in "keep". Seems quite straightforard. I'd vote "no deletion" instead, except I have no idea how the closers will interpret that whereas "keep" has a pretty clear prodivdence and means almost the same thing.
On 10/27/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
And you can't in my case either, because I really do have a reason why I think those nominations should fail to delete those articles. I don't vote "keep" unless I mean it.
Other than you addmissions on this list (but I'm not sure if we ever decided that stuff from the mailing list could be used as evidence against).
Anyway, this back and forth POINTing isn't really furthering the discussion of AfD's problems. If you want to "get" me under some rule or another, go ahead; I won't argue it here.
You wanted someone else removed from AFD. I can't see any way of doing it without going through arbcom.
I have no interest in blocking you. You would hardly be the first to vote mass keep. It doesn't appear to cause to many problems in the long run.
Why shouldn't I vote when I've got perfectly good reasons for casting a vote?
It breaks the mold. It gives an example to other people to think about AFD in a different way.
-- geni
There's something painfully ironic about the Cleanup-priority template. Its text is ungrammatical and awkward:
"This topic is considered a necessary subject on Wikipedia, and there is a high-priority on its being cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. See How to Edit and Style and How-to for help, or this article's talk page."
"There is a high-priority"? Does *anyone* know the rules of English grammar any more?
I don't even know where to start with improving it.
The whole idea of edit-comment templates is wrongheaded, anyway.
Is there some way to hide them? They're maddening.
"The Cunctator" cunctator@kband.com wrote in message news:BF867DFA.3E8E5%cunctator@kband.com...
There's something painfully ironic about the Cleanup-priority template. Its text is ungrammatical and awkward: "This topic is considered a necessary subject on Wikipedia, and there is a high-priority on its being cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. See How to Edit and Style and How-to for help, or this article's talk page." "There is a high-priority"? Does *anyone* know the rules of English grammar any more?
ObAaron: No.
I don't even know where to start with improving it. The whole idea of edit-comment templates is wrongheaded, anyway. Is there some way to hide them? They're maddening.
I'd say we have a good case for moving all this kind of crap to the Talk Page.
Let me think about it overnight, maybe my head will feel clearer in the morning :-)
Cunc is correct. The template as words is utterly appalling.
Thom
--- The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote:
There's something painfully ironic about the Cleanup-priority template. Its text is ungrammatical and awkward:
"This topic is considered a necessary subject on Wikipedia, and there is a high-priority on its being cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. See How to Edit and Style and How-to for help, or this article's talk page."
"There is a high-priority"? Does *anyone* know the rules of English grammar any more?
I don't even know where to start with improving it.
The whole idea of edit-comment templates is wrongheaded, anyway.
Is there some way to hide them? They're maddening.
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On 27 Oct 2005, at 05:06, geni wrote:
No it shoulds be dissregarded because WP:POINT. I take it you conceed that the nominator did in fact take more effort to nominate than you did to vote.
The nominator is just wasting everyones time. In one case the article is a joke (Mattism), but was listed as "NN D". This is not helpful, especially as it means that everyone who wants to vote has to do the research rather than the nominator. One of the articles was part of a series, so nominating it alone was stupid (I think he did it as it had school in the name).
The amount of time wasted makes this tantamount to vandalism and I think blocking the user from VfD would be a suitable response.
Justinc
On 10/27/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
The amount of time wasted makes this tantamount to vandalism and I think blocking the user from VfD would be a suitable response.
Justinc
Maybe maybe not but there is no way under the rules to do that.
-- geni
On 10/27/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
The amount of time wasted makes this tantamount to vandalism and I think blocking the user from VfD would be a suitable response.
Justinc
Maybe maybe not but there is no way under the rules to do that.
-- geni
See the Arbitration case of Anthony DiPierro. He was a disruptive inclusionist; there is no reason why someone couldn't be banned from AfD for deletionist disruption.
Note that the disruption is of /Wikipedia/. It is impossible to disrupt /AfD/ with deletionism, no matter how lunatic -- that entire subsystem is maliciously designed to support and encourage lunatic deletionism.
On 10/27/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
On 10/27/05, Justin Cormack justin@specialbusservice.com wrote:
The amount of time wasted makes this tantamount to vandalism and I think blocking the user from VfD would be a suitable response.
Justinc
Maybe maybe not but there is no way under the rules to do that.
-- geni
See the Arbitration case of Anthony DiPierro. He was a disruptive inclusionist; there is no reason why someone couldn't be banned from AfD for deletionist disruption.
Arbcom may do what they like.
Note that the disruption is of /Wikipedia/. It is impossible to disrupt /AfD/ with deletionism, no matter how lunatic -- that entire subsystem is maliciously designed to support and encourage lunatic deletionism.
AFD is designed?
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geni wrote:
On 10/27/05, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
<snip>
Note that the disruption is of /Wikipedia/. It is impossible to disrupt /AfD/ with deletionism, no matter how lunatic -- that entire subsystem is maliciously designed to support and encourage lunatic deletionism.
AFD is designed?
*reads fine print*
(c) Microsoft 2003-2005
Well, /there's/ the problem!
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
G'day Sean,
Note that the disruption is of /Wikipedia/. It is impossible to disrupt /AfD/ with deletionism, no matter how lunatic -- that entire subsystem is maliciously designed to support and encourage lunatic deletionism.
I know the hyperbole on this list comes thick and fast most of the time, but when readers start to seriously wish they could tag as {{nonsense}} entire paragraphs of one's emails, it's time to think a little before spewing crap.
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Mark Gallagher stated for the record:
G'day Sean,
Note that the disruption is of /Wikipedia/. It is impossible to disrupt /AfD/ with deletionism, no matter how lunatic -- that entire subsystem is maliciously designed to support and encourage lunatic deletionism.
I know the hyperbole on this list comes thick and fast most of the time, but when readers start to seriously wish they could tag as {{nonsense}} entire paragraphs of one's emails, it's time to think a little before spewing crap.
When a system is so destructively broken that numerous members of the community realize that it is impossible to repair and begin calling for its complete abolition (and use apt phrases such as "dynamite enema"), it is time for that system's defenders to question their fanaticism.
- -- Sean Barrett | George was very curious. sean@epoptic.com |
G'day Sean,
Mark Gallagher stated for the record:
G'day Sean,
Note that the disruption is of /Wikipedia/. It is impossible to disrupt /AfD/ with deletionism, no matter how lunatic -- that entire subsystem is maliciously designed to support and encourage lunatic deletionism.
I know the hyperbole on this list comes thick and fast most of the time, but when readers start to seriously wish they could tag as {{nonsense}} entire paragraphs of one's emails, it's time to think a little before spewing crap.
When a system is so destructively broken that numerous members of the community realize that it is impossible to repair and begin calling for its complete abolition (and use apt phrases such as "dynamite enema"),
It could be all that and a bag of chips and still not be "maliciously designed to support and encourage lunatic deletionism". I wasn't complaining about a mere everyday criticism of AfD, Sean.
it is time for that system's defenders to question their fanaticism.
"Fanatacism"? Presumably I'm reading you wrong, there.
From: Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org
Mark Gallagher stated for the record:
G'day Sean,
Note that the disruption is of /Wikipedia/. It is impossible to disrupt /AfD/ with deletionism, no matter how lunatic -- that entire subsystem is maliciously designed to support and encourage lunatic deletionism.
I know the hyperbole on this list comes thick and fast most of the time, but when readers start to seriously wish they could tag as {{nonsense}} entire paragraphs of one's emails, it's time to think a little before spewing crap.
When a system is so destructively broken that numerous members of the community realize that it is impossible to repair and begin calling for its complete abolition (and use apt phrases such as "dynamite enema"), it is time for that system's defenders to question their fanaticism.
The hyperbole regarding AFD's "brokenness", including terms like "fanaticism" applied to its supporters, is not a strong argument that it is actually broken.
Jay.
On Oct 30, 2005, at 7:09 PM, JAY JG wrote:
The hyperbole regarding AFD's "brokenness", including terms like "fanaticism" applied to its supporters, is not a strong argument that it is actually broken.
The fact that it demonstrably drives off good-faith contributors, however, is.
-Phil Sandifer (Snowspinner)
On 10/31/05, Snowspinner Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
The fact that it demonstrably drives off good-faith contributors, however, is.
-Phil Sandifer (Snowspinner)
Only if you can show that another system would not have the same effect.
-- geni
Someone listed [[ CIA_leak_grand_jury_investigation ]] for VFD claiming it was redundant with Plame_affair and Cheneygate (which should have been delete-merged already).
I dislike the way that the overuse (WP:template overuse) of templates creates a blight on wikipedia articles and hence makes wikipedia less condusive to casual reading than answers or some other sites that suck our stuff. The VFD box is a prime culprit if its misused in such a way, and its recent entry on main page referenced article is a good example of how process templates, boxes, tags (whatever) essentially deface a page for readers rather than aid editors in editing it. Assuming that wikipedia creates a product intended to be read and assuming that readers outweigh editors, etc.
end rant SV
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JAY JG stated for the record:
From: Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org
Mark Gallagher stated for the record:
G'day Sean,
I know the hyperbole on this list comes thick and fast most of the
time,
but when readers start to seriously wish they could tag as {{nonsense}} entire paragraphs of one's emails, it's time to think a little before spewing crap.
When a system is so destructively broken that numerous members of the community realize that it is impossible to repair and begin calling for its complete abolition (and use apt phrases such as "dynamite enema"), it is time for that system's defenders to question their fanaticism.
The hyperbole regarding AFD's "brokenness", including terms like "fanaticism" applied to its supporters, is not a strong argument that it is actually broken.
Jay.
Strong arguments proving its brokenness are laid out in detail elsewhere and need not be repeated. Observation of the fanaticism of those denying that plethora of argument, on the other hand, is perennial.
- -- Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com
From: Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org
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JAY JG stated for the record:
From: Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org
Mark Gallagher stated for the record:
G'day Sean,
I know the hyperbole on this list comes thick and fast most of the
time,
but when readers start to seriously wish they could tag as
{{nonsense}}
entire paragraphs of one's emails, it's time to think a little before spewing crap.
When a system is so destructively broken that numerous members of the community realize that it is impossible to repair and begin calling for its complete abolition (and use apt phrases such as "dynamite enema"), it is time for that system's defenders to question their fanaticism.
The hyperbole regarding AFD's "brokenness", including terms like "fanaticism" applied to its supporters, is not a strong argument that it is actually broken.
Jay.
Strong arguments proving its brokenness are laid out in detail elsewhere and need not be repeated. Observation of the fanaticism of those denying that plethora of argument, on the other hand, is perennial.
Sean, I'm very rarely on AfD, but from what I've seen (and what others have said here) the AfD appears to make reasonable decisions 95-98% percent of the time - it's the last 2-5% of controversial decisions that are causing all the angst here, combined with concern over a "poisonous atmosphere" on the page.
The page deals with over 100 articles a day, so it's easy enough to find examples of bad decisions. However, no system is perfect, and the error-rate at AfD does not appear to be particularly unreasonable for a human intensive process working under fairly loose guidelines. It certainly has not been demonstrated that the any other system would have a lower error rate. Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that "hard cases make bad law". Finally, as has been pointed out by Tony, AfD itself has a limited capacity, so the overall "harm" it can do Wikipedia, at least in terms of articles deleted in error (or, for that matter, kept in error), is miniscule.
What I think is perhaps more harmful is the overheated rhetoric found on this mailing list on this topic - demonization of those with whom one disagrees is extremely harmful to the Wikipedia community. From what I can tell, people on both sides of the issues are arguing in good faith, and are generally making reasonable arguments. In the end, rather than ratcheting things up and making them personal, can't everyone just agree to disagree?
Jay.
JAY JG wrote:
Sean, I'm very rarely on AfD, but from what I've seen (and what others have said here) the AfD appears to make reasonable decisions 95-98% percent of the time - it's the last 2-5% of controversial decisions that are causing all the angst here, combined with concern over a "poisonous atmosphere" on the page.
The page deals with over 100 articles a day, so it's easy enough to find examples of bad decisions. However, no system is perfect, and the error-rate at AfD does not appear to be particularly unreasonable for a human intensive process working under fairly loose guidelines. It certainly has not been demonstrated that the any other system would have a lower error rate. Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that "hard cases make bad law". Finally, as has been pointed out by Tony, AfD itself has a limited capacity, so the overall "harm" it can do Wikipedia, at least in terms of articles deleted in error (or, for that matter, kept in error), is miniscule.
Your ratio of controversial articles seems about right. The problem is in the tenacity with which controversial deletions are protected. No damage would be done by allowing the controversial ones more time, or allowing them to be easily undeleted for further discussion for as long as it takes.
Ec
On 11/1/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Your ratio of controversial articles seems about right. The problem is in the tenacity with which controversial deletions are protected. No damage would be done by allowing the controversial ones more time, or allowing them to be easily undeleted for further discussion for as long as it takes.
Ec
Prolonginf conflict is not a good idea.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 11/1/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Your ratio of controversial articles seems about right. The problem is in the tenacity with which controversial deletions are protected. No damage would be done by allowing the controversial ones more time, or allowing them to be easily undeleted for further discussion for as long as it takes.
Prolonginf conflict is not a good idea.
It would depend on the circumstances of the conflict, wouldn't it? In cases where there's genuine debate going on, it doesn't make sense to arbitrarily cut it off at some deadline rather than letting it continue until a clear decision is reached. If it stalemates then perhaps a deadline can come into play but it shouldn't be required as a universal solution.
"Conflict" is not inherently bad, it's part of how disagreements can be resolved.
On 11/1/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
It would depend on the circumstances of the conflict, wouldn't it? In cases where there's genuine debate going on, it doesn't make sense to arbitrarily cut it off at some deadline rather than letting it continue until a clear decision is reached. If it stalemates then perhaps a deadline can come into play but it shouldn't be required as a universal solution.
Stalemate is a subjective judement.
"Conflict" is not inherently bad, it's part of how disagreements can be resolved.
Heated conflict is.
-- geni
geni wrote:
On 11/1/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
It would depend on the circumstances of the conflict, wouldn't it? In cases where there's genuine debate going on, it doesn't make sense to arbitrarily cut it off at some deadline rather than letting it continue until a clear decision is reached. If it stalemates then perhaps a deadline can come into play but it shouldn't be required as a universal solution.
Stalemate is a subjective judement.
So? Subjectivity is going to come into play _somewhere_ in the midst of all this, even if it's in the process of setting up objective standards in the first place.
"Conflict" is not inherently bad, it's part of how disagreements can be resolved.
Heated conflict is.
There's already a very well-established policy against personal attacks, so I don't see how this is relevant. Not all conflict is heated.
On 11/2/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
geni wrote: So? Subjectivity is going to come into play _somewhere_ in the midst of all this, even if it's in the process of setting up objective standards in the first place.
Admins haveing to make subjective judements should be kept to a minium
There's already a very well-established policy against personal attacks, so I don't see how this is relevant. Not all conflict is heated.
Most stuff that would go on beyond 5 days on AFD would be.
-- geni
Bryan Derksen wrote:
geni wrote:
On 11/1/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Your ratio of controversial articles seems about right. The problem is in the tenacity with which controversial deletions are protected. No damage would be done by allowing the controversial ones more time, or allowing them to be easily undeleted for further discussion for as long as it takes.
Prolonginf conflict is not a good idea.
It would depend on the circumstances of the conflict, wouldn't it? In cases where there's genuine debate going on, it doesn't make sense to arbitrarily cut it off at some deadline rather than letting it continue until a clear decision is reached. If it stalemates then perhaps a deadline can come into play but it shouldn't be required as a universal solution.
"Conflict" is not inherently bad, it's part of how disagreements can be resolved.
Conflict becomes bad when the conflict itself becomes more important than the subject of the conflict. Some domestic arguments manage to carry on even after the spouses have forgotten what the argument was about.
Ec
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net
JAY JG wrote:
Sean, I'm very rarely on AfD, but from what I've seen (and what others have said here) the AfD appears to make reasonable decisions 95-98% percent of the time - it's the last 2-5% of controversial decisions that are causing all the angst here, combined with concern over a "poisonous atmosphere" on the page.
The page deals with over 100 articles a day, so it's easy enough to find examples of bad decisions. However, no system is perfect, and the error-rate at AfD does not appear to be particularly unreasonable for a human intensive process working under fairly loose guidelines. It certainly has not been demonstrated that the any other system would have a lower error rate. Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that "hard cases make bad law". Finally, as has been pointed out by Tony, AfD itself has a limited capacity, so the overall "harm" it can do Wikipedia, at least in terms of articles deleted in error (or, for that matter, kept in error), is miniscule.
Your ratio of controversial articles seems about right. The problem is in the tenacity with which controversial deletions are protected. No damage would be done by allowing the controversial ones more time, or allowing them to be easily undeleted for further discussion for as long as it takes.
So what you're suggesting is that AfD simply needs to be modified a little to allow longer decision periods for, say, articles in the 65-75% delete range, and that the rules for VfU need to be loosened somewhat? These don't seem to me to be insurmountable obstacles, or indications of a completely broken process.
By the way, my (admittedly limited) experience in this area tells me that articles voted for deletion often take many more than 5 days to be deleted, and that many VfU nominations consist of disgruntled article authors complaining that "my article is the truth, you're just censoring the truth!!!"
Jay.
JAY JG wrote:
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net
JAY JG wrote:
Sean, I'm very rarely on AfD, but from what I've seen (and what others have said here) the AfD appears to make reasonable decisions 95-98% percent of the time - it's the last 2-5% of controversial decisions that are causing all the angst here, combined with concern over a "poisonous atmosphere" on the page.
The page deals with over 100 articles a day, so it's easy enough to find examples of bad decisions. However, no system is perfect, and the error-rate at AfD does not appear to be particularly unreasonable for a human intensive process working under fairly loose guidelines. It certainly has not been demonstrated that the any other system would have a lower error rate. Furthermore, it should be kept in mind that "hard cases make bad law". Finally, as has been pointed out by Tony, AfD itself has a limited capacity, so the overall "harm" it can do Wikipedia, at least in terms of articles deleted in error (or, for that matter, kept in error), is miniscule.
Your ratio of controversial articles seems about right. The problem is in the tenacity with which controversial deletions are protected. No damage would be done by allowing the controversial ones more time, or allowing them to be easily undeleted for further discussion for as long as it takes.
So what you're suggesting is that AfD simply needs to be modified a little to allow longer decision periods for, say, articles in the 65-75% delete range, and that the rules for VfU need to be loosened somewhat? These don't seem to me to be insurmountable obstacles, or indications of a completely broken process.
By the way, my (admittedly limited) experience in this area tells me that articles voted for deletion often take many more than 5 days to be deleted, and that many VfU nominations consist of disgruntled article authors complaining that "my article is the truth, you're just censoring the truth!!!"
More or less. But it's not even a percentage issue. Many of the deleted articles may have 5 votes to delete and no comments to keep. The original contributor may not even know that the process has been applied until long after the article has been deleted. Measuring the discussion period in days alone doesn't help in obscure subjects that get very little traffic. At the same time it's easy to get five people together with a common agenda of cleaning out what they see as non-notable articles.
The average contributor cannot undelete anything. He still needs the agreement of one sysop to revive the article. It is still conceivable that a sysop who wants an article undeleted could act alone. Even the disgruntled author whom you describe needs one kick at the cat. He will still need the assistance of a sysop. To delete the article again would require some adequate number of NEW voices to want it deleted. The process could be repeated indefinitely with the key requirement being that each such action requires new participants, whether as ordinary users or sysops.
This all assumes that in course of this cycle of deletions and undeletions there have been no major improvements to the article, or there have been no acceptable alternative solutions.
There will always be articles that need deletion. Scrapping the process entirely will mean that another one will have to be found. I view the change from VfD to AfD as something of the sort. I would scrap VfU as a redundant process. If someone wants an article undeleted it should be enough to let those views be known by adding comments to the existing AfD page, which would never be closed. Starting a separate VfU discussion just means that we end up with a fragmented discussion with the same arguments in two different places.
The biggest flaw in the existing process is perhaps the tone of finality that accompanies these deletions. It is understandable that when you sweep the dirt ou the door you want it to stay out. On the other hand, stories abound of old comic books or baseball cards that were thrown out in one of mom's clean ups but which were retrospectively determined to have great value. I think that we can still have any article that goes through AfD could easily be undeleted, but I suspect that 95% of these will in fact stay deleted without any fuss at all.
Ec
On 11/3/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The biggest flaw in the existing process is perhaps the tone of finality that accompanies these deletions. It is understandable that when you sweep the dirt ou the door you want it to stay out. On the other hand, stories abound of old comic books or baseball cards that were thrown out in one of mom's clean ups but which were retrospectively determined to have great value. I think that we can still have any article that goes through AfD could easily be undeleted, but I suspect that 95% of these will in fact stay deleted without any fuss at all.
Ec
Recreate an article in about a years time and make a a decent article and people are unlikely to care.
-- geni
G'day Jayjg,
From: Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org Mark Gallagher stated for the record:
I know the hyperbole on this list comes thick and fast most of the
time,
but when readers start to seriously wish they could tag as {{nonsense}} entire paragraphs of one's emails, it's time to think a little before spewing crap.
When a system is so destructively broken that numerous members of the community realize that it is impossible to repair and begin calling for its complete abolition (and use apt phrases such as "dynamite enema"), it is time for that system's defenders to question their fanaticism.
The hyperbole regarding AFD's "brokenness", including terms like "fanaticism" applied to its supporters, is not a strong argument that it is actually broken.
Hey, now. I never said I was a supporter! Which just makes it worse, really, doesn't it?
The mailing list and AfD seem to mirror each other in many ways. On the one hand, AfDers don't pat each other on the back and talk about how they're the only ones who realise the truth about those nasty inclusionists. On the other, bile-spewing inclusionists on this list aren't deleting others' hard work.
Who deserves to be hated more? Well, if any of y'all reading this are wondering if that's what I'm getting at, it's time to step back a little and have a cup of tea or something.
Cheers,
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Justin Cormack wrote:
On 27 Oct 2005, at 05:06, geni wrote:
No it shoulds be dissregarded because WP:POINT. I take it you conceed that the nominator did in fact take more effort to nominate than you did to vote.
The nominator is just wasting everyones time. In one case the article is a joke (Mattism), but was listed as "NN D". This is not helpful, especially as it means that everyone who wants to vote has to do the research rather than the nominator. One of the articles was part of a series, so nominating it alone was stupid (I think he did it as it had school in the name).
The amount of time wasted makes this tantamount to vandalism and I think blocking the user from VfD would be a suitable response.
I invite you to join [[WP:RFC/AfD]]. Yes, that's a valid shortcut. Yes, the targets are probably wrong, so I invite you to add more on a case-by case basis.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
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Bryan Derksen wrote:
Andrew Gray wrote:
Today's VFD zen: the first twelve of fifteen entries on this days page are nominated simply as "NN, D. ~~~~" (and there's more after that). I swear this becomes self-parody sometimes...
Just voted blanket "keep" on all of them, and am awaiting the inevitable accusation of WP:POINT. Nevermind that I probably spent more effort on my votes than the nominator did....
I'm sure that some nice person has written a script by which all they have to do is click a link/press a button and it will automatically votet "keep/delete" for them...
(I hereby claim copyright/patent/whatever on this idea and am willing to write such a function in exchange for a position on Arbcom.)
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
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Snowspinner wrote: <snip>
Here's a first stab - people with documentable credentials in an area that would, in the eyes of a reasonable layman, qualify them to make a decision on the importance of a topic will be allowed to speedy keep articles in the area of their credentials.
Before anyone says "not Nupedia again", I think content inclusion guidlines are actually an area that needs a bit of credentialism.
Of course, we would still need to guard against POV pushing and original research, but it is certainly a better idea than many of the current ones.
- -- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \
As long as everyone is allowed to share their views or just blatantly vote without properly explaining their vote. We're going to make mistakes. We can't fix that without doing something very unwiki. We should ignore votes that don't make a case on why a comic of a professional author shouldn't be included or make a wrong one based on the policy we've got.
--Mgm
On 10/25/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
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Snowspinner wrote:
<snip> > Here's a first stab - people with documentable credentials in an area > that would, in the eyes of a reasonable layman, qualify them to make a > decision on the importance of a topic will be allowed to speedy keep > articles in the area of their credentials. >
Before anyone says "not Nupedia again", I think content inclusion guidlines are actually an area that needs a bit of credentialism.
Of course, we would still need to guard against POV pushing and original research, but it is certainly a better idea than many of the current ones.
Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
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On Oct 25, 2005, at 4:14 AM, Alphax wrote:
Before anyone says "not Nupedia again", I think content inclusion guidlines are actually an area that needs a bit of credentialism.
Another argument in favor, to my mind, is that even for experts, citation takes time. Research is a non-trivial task. On an article, this is fine - it's not a race, and citations and information can be added whenever. Sooner is nice, eventually is acceptable.
Deletion debates, you have five days, assuming you notice it off the bat. When you get stretches like we're getting with webcomics, whereby huge strings of comics are nominated in a row, citation-based responses become impossible. But even in the case of an individual article on a topic, it is absurd to demand that subject experts get their work done in five days. Especially when we are so wedded to process that a closed AfD is growing more and more impossible to overturn.
-Snowspinner
Snowspinner wrote:
Another argument in favor, to my mind, is that even for experts, citation takes time. Research is a non-trivial task. On an article, this is fine - it's not a race, and citations and information can be added whenever. Sooner is nice, eventually is acceptable.
Deletion debates, you have five days, assuming you notice it off the bat. When you get stretches like we're getting with webcomics, whereby huge strings of comics are nominated in a row, citation-based responses become impossible. But even in the case of an individual article on a topic, it is absurd to demand that subject experts get their work done in five days. Especially when we are so wedded to process that a closed AfD is growing more and more impossible to overturn.
Just knowing about the nomination is a problem for an editor with once-a-week computer access. With a five day cycle an article can be nominated and deleted befor he comes back the following week.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Just knowing about the nomination is a problem for an editor with once-a-week computer access. With a five day cycle an article can be nominated and deleted befor he comes back the following week.
Insert my 30-day AfD proposal here again. :) Of course they shouldn't _have_ to last that long, if a solid consensus develops before then one way or the other there shouldn't be a problem ending it early. Bearing in mind that "solid consensus" means more than just a tally of 66% "keep" or "delete". Insert my "disregard unexplained votes" proposal here again. :)