I asked Arkady if there was a public link to the discussion. She said:
You have to be a member of DoA to read most of the threads, so no - it's not publically viewable. However from a quick glance through the discussion as it stands, the overwhelming consensus is "fuck WP" - only more polite than that. They don't want to get involved with the insidious bureaucracy and delete-happy morons, and frankly I don't blame them. They want to share their enjoyment of dolls, not get caught up in stupid edit-wars with Cat Piss Men. And you can quote me on that, too.
Note, by the way, that this field has NOT yet been through the AFD grinder that schools and webcomics have been through - rather, they're another group who have seen the rubbish going on there and decided "bugger that."
Who will be next? Who will be next that we don't hear about until well after the event?
Tell me that's not AFD culture being directly damaging to Wikipedia, now and for the future.
The AC has resoundingly failed to deal with the issue. (And I apologise myself for being marked away at the time.) It needs dealing with. Who can or will do something about it that will stick?
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
I asked Arkady if there was a public link to the discussion. She said:
You have to be a member of DoA to read most of the threads, so no - it's not publically viewable. However from a quick glance through the discussion as it stands, the overwhelming consensus is "fuck WP" - only more polite than that. They don't want to get involved with the insidious bureaucracy and delete-happy morons, and frankly I don't blame them. They want to share their enjoyment of dolls, not get caught up in stupid edit-wars with Cat Piss Men. And you can quote me on that, too.
Note, by the way, that this field has NOT yet been through the AFD grinder that schools and webcomics have been through - rather, they're another group who have seen the rubbish going on there and decided "bugger that."
Who will be next? Who will be next that we don't hear about until well after the event?
Tell me that's not AFD culture being directly damaging to Wikipedia, now and for the future.
The AC has resoundingly failed to deal with the issue. (And I apologise myself for being marked away at the time.) It needs dealing with. Who can or will do something about it that will stick?
- d.
While I understand the webcomics concern, what do schools have to do with this? Just because I'm an expert on the schools I've attended doesn't give me the right to whinge about them being deleted (which I'd gladly vote to do). I think things have gotten out of hand where schools are concerned -- the only reason I don't vote delete on most of them is because there's, ironically, *too much* of a backlash against deleting schools, to the point where being a school alone is good enough to merit inclusion in an encyclopedia.
John Lee ([[User:Johnleemk]])
If I were a newer or less eloquent contributor, I'd certainly worry that MY pet topics might get deleted, that's for certain.
I don't think that worthy articles get deleted very often at all, but the issue is as much that occasionally, there's a big ugly fight over something that really should not have been up for deletion at all, or should have been speedy kept. It's not helped that the Wikipedia community has a circle-round-the-wagons mentality when faced with an angry newcomer who doesn't know how things work. We tend to reflexively want to do things against those who come here and tell us what to do.
There are quite a few reasons why those interested in an obscure topic would be BETTER off at Wikipedia, though:
1. Anti-vandalism assistance. Vandals can utterly destroy a small wiki with automated tools. Natural responses to such vandalism - including making it hard to edit - effectively kill off the project because no "new blood" gets in. 2. Writing assistance. Even if I don't know anything about your topic, I can help you with grammar, presentation, etc. Wikipedia is big enough that such help will come along. 3. No hosting worries. If you start your own wiki, you have to host it, you have to be sure you can pay for it, and you have to be sure it'll stay up. If you put your stuff on Wikipedia, it's pretty certain to remain available. 4. Prominence and advertising. You're much more likely to find new contributors if you attach your project to a top 20 website.
There have to be a few more, too. Anyone think of any? We might want to have a Wikipedia: page about why NOT forking is best.
-Matt
On 11 Jan 2006, at 17:44, Matt Brown wrote:
If I were a newer or less eloquent contributor, I'd certainly worry that MY pet topics might get deleted, that's for certain.
Yes, once I did; once I had a few articles listed on AfD; now my standards have risen, still some I need to add references to.
- Anti-vandalism assistance. Vandals can utterly destroy a small
wiki with automated tools. Natural responses to such vandalism - including making it hard to edit - effectively kill off the project because no "new blood" gets in. 2. Writing assistance. Even if I don't know anything about your topic, I can help you with grammar, presentation, etc. Wikipedia is big enough that such help will come along. 3. No hosting worries. If you start your own wiki, you have to host it, you have to be sure you can pay for it, and you have to be sure it'll stay up. If you put your stuff on Wikipedia, it's pretty certain to remain available. 4. Prominence and advertising. You're much more likely to find new contributors if you attach your project to a top 20 website.
Very good reasons.
Perhaps the doll people arent interested in these much, small community quite possible they are not interested in writing encyclopaedic articles anyway - more like the Sothebys catalogue thats lying on the floor I would guess - it has information you wouldnt get from any other source, but no references; I treat it as something between a primary and secondary source myself. Good for illustrations if they were free though. I would quote it in a WP article to back up better sources.
Show me a real functioning wiki that is making encyclopaedic articles and I will be more worried.
Justinc