It has never been pretty; but the current complaints on the deletion mechanism seem to be about Gresham's Law. Roughly speaking, the 'clueless newbie' approach is orthogonal to the 'right stuff' for the job, which is to know what help constructs WP, and what is fluff or actually detrimental.
What to do? If GL is the basis reason - the people with informed judgement being also those who can easily find better things to do on the site, then it needs configuring. Subdivide by type of reason for deletion? By area of topic? A smaller 'room' can be a friendlier atmosphere.
It seems to me that a basic point that borderline cases are _not_ the most significant; a marginal keep is one that is not great for WP.
Charles
charles matthews wrote:
It has never been pretty; but the current complaints on the deletion mechanism seem to be about Gresham's Law. Roughly speaking, the 'clueless newbie' approach is orthogonal to the 'right stuff' for the job, which is to know what help constructs WP, and what is fluff or actually detrimental.
What to do? If GL is the basis reason - the people with informed judgement being also those who can easily find better things to do on the site, then it needs configuring. Subdivide by type of reason for deletion? By area of topic? A smaller 'room' can be a friendlier atmosphere.
It seems to me that a basic point that borderline cases are _not_ the most significant; a marginal keep is one that is not great for WP.
I'd actually like to see AfD split by topic area, as recently happened with the Reference Desk (and happened with the Village Pump long ago).
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
On 9/11/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
charles matthews wrote:
It has never been pretty; but the current complaints on the deletion mechanism seem to be about Gresham's Law. Roughly speaking, the 'clueless newbie' approach is orthogonal to the 'right stuff' for the job, which is to know what help constructs WP, and what is fluff or actually detrimental.
What to do? If GL is the basis reason - the people with informed judgement being also those who can easily find better things to do on the site, then it needs configuring. Subdivide by type of reason for deletion? By area of topic? A smaller 'room' can be a friendlier atmosphere.
It seems to me that a basic point that borderline cases are _not_ the most significant; a marginal keep is one that is not great for WP.
I'd actually like to see AfD split by topic area, as recently happened with the Reference Desk (and happened with the Village Pump long ago).
-- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \ _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Phroziac wrote:
On 9/11/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
charles matthews wrote:
It has never been pretty; but the current complaints on the deletion mechanism seem to be about Gresham's Law. Roughly speaking, the 'clueless newbie' approach is orthogonal to the 'right stuff' for the job, which is to know what help constructs WP, and what is fluff or actually detrimental.
What to do? If GL is the basis reason - the people with informed judgement being also those who can easily find better things to do on the site, then it needs configuring. Subdivide by type of reason for deletion? By area of topic? A smaller 'room' can be a friendlier atmosphere.
It seems to me that a basic point that borderline cases are _not_ the most significant; a marginal keep is one that is not great for WP.
I'd actually like to see AfD split by topic area, as recently happened with the Reference Desk (and happened with the Village Pump long ago).
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
Alphax wrote:
So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
Not speaking for Phroziac, of course, but what's wrong with that? Articles could still be merged and redirected without VfD, so any information that's not speediable would still find its proper place in Wikipedia.
Bryan Derksen wrote:
Alphax wrote:
So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
Not speaking for Phroziac, of course, but what's wrong with that? Articles could still be merged and redirected without VfD, so any information that's not speediable would still find its proper place in Wikipedia.
Alright, let's rename AfD to "Article for Merge and Redirecting" (AfMR). Now all we can argue about^W^W^Whave to decide is where to redirect the articles to.
Renaming fixed the who democratic vote mentality peoplel get when seeing "Votes for deletion" and think there's a need for a majority instead of a concensus.
Seperating in topics, only makes listing something for deletion a bigger pain.
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
Alphax wrote:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
Alphax wrote:
Phroziac wrote:
On 9/11/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
I'd actually like to see AfD split by topic area, as recently happened with the Reference Desk (and happened with the Village Pump long ago).
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
Not speaking for Phroziac, of course, but what's wrong with that? Articles could still be merged and redirected without VfD, so any information that's not speediable would still find its proper place in Wikipedia.
Alright, let's rename AfD to "Article for Merge and Redirecting" (AfMR). Now all we can argue about^W^W^Whave to decide is where to redirect the articles to.
Renaming fixed the who democratic vote mentality peoplel get when seeing "Votes for deletion" and think there's a need for a majority instead of a concensus.
Seperating in topics, only makes listing something for deletion a bigger pain.
Argh! Don't snip so much! Check which part of the thread you are replying to! I have re-threaded it so that we can see everything in context...
But yes, splitting it up would probably not fix anything. SO how about called it "articles for merging"?
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com
But yes, splitting it up would probably not fix anything. SO how about called it "articles for merging"?
That would be un-helpful, since the majority of intentions and outcomes are for deletion. Yes, sometimes the consensus is for merging the article, but that's not the most typical outcome. Neologisms, original research, rants, advertisements, pet theories, bands that are planning to record their first CD any day now, [[List of flags featuring one or more stars and the colors red, blue, and white]] etc. don't qualify under Speedy deletion rules, but still have no place in an encyclopedia.
Jay.
JAY JG wrote:
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com
But yes, splitting it up would probably not fix anything. SO how about called it "articles for merging"?
That would be un-helpful, since the majority of intentions and outcomes are for deletion. Yes, sometimes the consensus is for merging the article, but that's not the most typical outcome. Neologisms, original research, rants, advertisements, pet theories, bands that are planning to record their first CD any day now, [[List of flags featuring one or more stars and the colors red, blue, and white]] etc. don't qualify under Speedy deletion rules, but still have no place in an encyclopedia.
Now I understand why people leave so quickly...
A: "This article should be deleted." B: "But it's verifiable!" A: "It's non-notable and unencyplodic." C: "There are no notability policies! It's verifiable and isn't original research!" A: "Have read the article? We don't need an article on this! It has no place in a general purpsose encyclopedia!" D: "JIMBO SEZ: Wiki is not paper, so it can stay." A: "ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
hah. AFD needs to die, but I didn't say it shouldn't be replaced. It should be replaced with the pure wiki deletion system.
On 9/11/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
JAY JG wrote:
From: Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com
But yes, splitting it up would probably not fix anything. SO how about called it "articles for merging"?
That would be un-helpful, since the majority of intentions and outcomes are for deletion. Yes, sometimes the consensus is for merging the article, but that's not the most typical outcome. Neologisms, original research, rants, advertisements, pet theories, bands that are planning to record their first CD any day now, [[List of flags featuring one or more stars and the colors red, blue, and white]] etc. don't qualify under Speedy deletion rules, but still have no place in an encyclopedia.
Now I understand why people leave so quickly...
A: "This article should be deleted." B: "But it's verifiable!" A: "It's non-notable and unencyplodic." C: "There are no notability policies! It's verifiable and isn't original research!" A: "Have read the article? We don't need an article on this! It has no place in a general purpsose encyclopedia!" D: "JIMBO SEZ: Wiki is not paper, so it can stay." A: "ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
-- Alphax | /"\ Encrypted Email Preferred | \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign OpenPGP key ID: 0xF874C613 | X Against HTML email & vCards http://tinyurl.com/cc9up | / \ _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
JAY JG wrote:
That would be un-helpful, since the majority of intentions and outcomes are for deletion. Yes, sometimes the consensus is for merging the article, but that's not the most typical outcome. Neologisms, original research, rants, advertisements, pet theories, bands that are planning to record their first CD any day now, [[List of flags featuring one or more stars and the colors red, blue, and white]] etc. don't qualify under Speedy deletion rules, but still have no place in an encyclopedia.
Exactly. And we don't want to add these things to the Speedy rules, either. (Well, maybe a few... ;-))
--Jimbo
From: MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com
Renaming fixed the who democratic vote mentality peoplel get when seeing "Votes for deletion" and think there's a need for a majority instead of a concensus.
Ultimately there's little difference, at least on Wikipedia, where "consensus" is defined as some sort of large majority, ranging from 66% to 80% depending on the situation.
Jay.
G'day MGM,
Renaming fixed the who democratic vote mentality peoplel get when seeing "Votes for deletion" and think there's a need for a majority instead of a concensus.
Seperating in topics, only makes listing something for deletion a bigger pain.
That's a *good* thing.
I'm probably fairly deletionist (though I've changed my vote a couple times after being proved wrong). If I have to jump through hoops to justify why a page should be deleted, so what? I shouldn't be listing it if I don't think it's important that it gets removed.
Pros: - fewer frivolous nominations - nominator must be prepared to justify herself, because who would go to all that effort of selecting a category etc. without having a bloody good reason to delete? - higher chance of knowledgeable people voting on the issue[0] - smaller pages, so fewer articles get lost in the mess - an admin can dedicate herself to a particular category, so there's less of a backlog
Cons: - imagine Star Wars tragics camping themselves in the "Star Wars-cruft" category and harassing anyone who tries to suggest that the man mentioned in passing in somebody's fanfic based on some novel about Luke Skywalker's children with no other connection to the movies is *obviously* notable. It'll happen. - if there's no admins who care about $category, very few discussions will be closed. Categories that don't cover WP's inherent biases will be as ignored as the majority of articles like that.
[0] Though frankly, if a voter (or whatever we're calling them now) is willing to do a minimum of research (read the article, check Google, check policies like WP:MUSIC), they shouldn't *need* to be knowledgeable about the subject. If an article doesn't establish notability enough on its own, and Google/policies don't back it up, why shouldn't I argue for deletion? Because I don't like Pokémon, or whatever "cruft" has come up lately?
On 9/11/05, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
G'day MGM,
Renaming fixed the who democratic vote mentality peoplel get when seeing "Votes for deletion" and think there's a need for a majority instead of a concensus.
Seperating in topics, only makes listing something for deletion a bigger pain.
That's a *good* thing.
I'm probably fairly deletionist (though I've changed my vote a couple times after being proved wrong). If I have to jump through hoops to justify why a page should be deleted, so what?
So when I'm on RC patrol it becomes even more tempting to streach the rules os speedy delete rather than figure out how to navigate through some awful AFD system. The current one is bad enough.
On Sun, 11 Sep 2005, Alphax wrote:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
Alphax wrote:
So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
Not speaking for Phroziac, of course, but what's wrong with that? Articles could still be merged and redirected without VfD, so any information that's not speediable would still find its proper place in Wikipedia.
Alright, let's rename AfD to "Article for Merge and Redirecting" (AfMR). Now all we can argue about^W^W^Whave to decide is where to redirect the articles to.
I admit I've only read a few pieces of this discussion, but has anyone proposed redefining "AfD" to be the abbreviation for "Articles for Discussion"? That would move the process even further from appearing to be Wikipedia's variant of being the law West of the Pecos.
Geoff
On 11/09/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
Alright, let's rename AfD to "Article for Merge and Redirecting" (AfMR). Now all we can argue about^W^W^Whave to decide is where to redirect the articles to.
I admit I've only read a few pieces of this discussion, but has anyone proposed redefining "AfD" to be the abbreviation for "Articles for Discussion"? That would move the process even further from appearing to be Wikipedia's variant of being the law West of the Pecos.
Discussion is possibly too vague. "Articles/Categories/Templates/Images for Review"? (or Consideration, which is nicely vague) This encompasses a lot of the "this probably isn't deletable in general, but it goes to VfD for want of anything better" that crops up...
Alphax wrote:
Bryan Derksen wrote:
Alphax wrote:
Not speaking for Phroziac, of course, but what's wrong with that? Articles could still be merged and redirected without VfD, so any information that's not speediable would still find its proper place in Wikipedia.
Alright, let's rename AfD to "Article for Merge and Redirecting" (AfMR). Now all we can argue about^W^W^Whave to decide is where to redirect the articles to.
Why in the world would we do that? We don't have an "Articles for spelling corrections" or an "Articles for improper header capitalization", people just _fix_ those things. I've merged and redirected plenty of articles in the past without putting it to a vote.
Alphax (alphasigmax@gmail.com) [050911 14:34]:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
You have a logical fallacy implicit in that answer: that the only deletion mechanism possible is the one we've got. Surely that can't be the case.
I reiterate my suggestion: suspend the deletion mechanism (keep CSD for our remaining sanity) for a month working out a deletion mechanism that won't drive people away, cause vicious infighting and lead to unhealable forks which can never be pulled back into Wikipedia. Two forks (the Star Trek and webcomics encyclopedias) is two too many. I figure a month without it will REALLY FOCUS PEOPLE'S ATTENTION.
- d.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050913 07:38]:
From: fun@thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
I reiterate my suggestion: suspend the deletion mechanism (keep CSD for our remaining sanity) for a month working out a deletion mechanism that won't drive people away
Have people been driven away?
I refer you again to the two examples that have been brought up repeatedly: Memory Alpha and Comixpedia. We're not getting those volunteers back, and in the former case we can't ever heal the fork because they chose a different licence. Those forks were a stupid and bad idea. And if you disagree on that, please explain what good they do Wikipedia, both in themselves as forks and as bad examples frustrated contributors may follow in the future.
- d.
I refer you again to the two examples that have been brought up repeatedly: Memory Alpha and Comixpedia. We're not getting those volunteers back, and in the former case we can't ever heal the fork because they chose a different licence. Those forks were a stupid and bad idea. And if you disagree on that, please explain what good they do Wikipedia, both in themselves as forks and as bad examples frustrated contributors may follow in the future.
- d.
I wouldn't say Memory Alpha is bad. Their non-commercial license allows them to use more materials copyrighted by Paramount, and some articles that belong to a fan-wiki wouldnt' really belong to Wikipedia. Same with other fan-wikis, like Battlestar Wiki or The Vault (a [[Fallout (computer game)]] wiki). I don't think full dialogue files from a computer game or articles about every minor character in a game belong to Wikipedia. That's why I founded a separate wiki for that, not because I was driven away.
Why do you keep saying they've been "driven away?" They've not been "driven away," they've set up their own home for information. Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base, it's an encyclopedia. Detailed accounts of every single Star Trek thing possible are *not* all encyclopedic. Creating an independent wiki is a GREAT way to expand coverage of areas that may not necessarily be encyclopedic but may be interesting to subsets of specific fans. I *encourage* it, in fact.
There is absolutely nothing stopping people from contributing to more than one wiki.
-FCYTravis @ en.wikipedia
Travis Mason-Bushman Public Relations Director GAINSCO/Blackhawk Racing travis@gpsports-eng.com
Travis Mason-Bushman (travis@gpsports-eng.com) [050913 08:17]:
Why do you keep saying they've been "driven away?" They've not been "driven away," they've set up their own home for information. Wikipedia
Er, the Comixpedia people were pretty clearly driven away by truly stupid misapplication of truly stupid VFD nonpolicy.
- d.
Er, the Comixpedia people were pretty clearly driven away by truly stupid misapplication of truly stupid VFD nonpolicy.
- d.
True, but I don't think it's the case with MemoryAlpha.
From: fun@thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050913 07:38]:
From: fun@thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
I reiterate my suggestion: suspend the deletion mechanism (keep CSD for
our
remaining sanity) for a month working out a deletion mechanism that
won't
drive people away
Have people been driven away?
I refer you again to the two examples that have been brought up repeatedly: Memory Alpha and Comixpedia. We're not getting those volunteers back, and in the former case we can't ever heal the fork because they chose a different licence. Those forks were a stupid and bad idea. And if you disagree on that, please explain what good they do Wikipedia, both in themselves as forks and as bad examples frustrated contributors may follow in the future.
As Angela has pointed out, Memory Alpha was not a fork. But even if it were, I think we have to accept that Wikipedia will not be the only encyclopedia on the internet, and also that this is not necessarily a bad thing. Wikipedia is a general purpose encyclopedia, and the level of detail is appropriate for the general reader. There will always be special purpose areas of knowledge for restricted audiences which will delve into areas in considerably more depth. That's the way it is with printed encyclopedias as well.
In addition, special purpose encyclopedias will almost certainly have editing policies which differ from Wikipedia's, particularly around issues such as NPOV and Original Research. I can easily imagine, for example, various religious groups setting up Wikis for areas of specialized knowledge, which would both have far more detail than Wikipedia, but also their own rules for content, and I don't think this is a bad thing.
Finally, competition is good; it makes us produce a better product than if we were a monopoly. I don't think we should strive to be the *only* encyclopedia on the internet, but instead strive to be the *best* one out there.
Jay.
On 9/12/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Alphax (alphasigmax@gmail.com) [050911 14:34]:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
You have a logical fallacy implicit in that answer: that the only deletion mechanism possible is the one we've got. Surely that can't be the case.
I reiterate my suggestion: suspend the deletion mechanism (keep CSD for our remaining sanity) for a month working out a deletion mechanism that won't drive people away, cause vicious infighting and lead to unhealable forks which can never be pulled back into Wikipedia. Two forks (the Star Trek and webcomics encyclopedias) is two too many.
Then I take it you support the removal of NPOV policy (or have you forgotten wikinfo?). That is after all the logical end point of your position.
I figure a month without it will REALLY FOCUS PEOPLE'S ATTENTION.
- d.
Or we could go the other way and turn all the VFD criteia into speedy critia which waould really focus the attention of the inclusionists.
G'day geni,
On 9/12/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
<snip />
I figure a month without it will REALLY FOCUS PEOPLE'S ATTENTION.
Or we could go the other way and turn all the VFD criteia into speedy critia which waould really focus the attention of the inclusionists.
Deletionist or not, I'd favour David's suggestion over *that* one. It's a little over-the-top, no?
You see borderline cases on AfD every day. Deleting them outright, with no discussion, would be worse than allowing them to be.
On 9/12/05, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:
G'day geni,
On 9/12/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
<snip /> >>I figure a month without it will >>REALLY FOCUS PEOPLE'S ATTENTION. > > Or we could go the other way and turn all the VFD criteia into speedy > critia which waould really focus the attention of the inclusionists.
Deletionist or not, I'd favour David's suggestion over *that* one. It's a little over-the-top, no?
You see borderline cases on AfD every day. Deleting them outright, with no discussion, would be worse than allowing them to be.
I think the point was not that temporary expandsion of CSD is any better idea than shutting down AfD for a month, but that either extreme would be more harmful than leaving AfD as is.
They're both over the top ideas that would hurt a lot of feelings and cause a lot of fights.
After all the fights there were over a minor expansion of CSD recently, I can only imagine how bitter things would get if further expansion were imposed top down. And can you imagine what AfD would be like on the day after a shutdown? "Rabid monkey house" comes to mind.
On 9/10/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
Extreme lesbian support.
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 9/10/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
So you don't think that any articles need to be deleted (outside of candidates for speedy deletion), ever?
Extreme lesbian support.
Which way?
On 12/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Dan Grey wrote:
Pure wiki deletion system.
Can you explain what you mean by that? In some detail?
--Jimbo
As Angela linked to before: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)
On 12/09/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
Dan, you are one of the most vocal proponents of the PWDS. Please explain to me this: what would we gain by having revert wars over something, with blatantly obvious vandalism available in page histories, rather than deleting outright?
Revert wars wouldn't get very far due to the 3RR - it would force people to come to a *consensus* over whether or not to include an article, rather than just voting. I bet most deletions wouldn't be controversial (just as a lot of AfD listings aren't opposed). I don't see how having vandalism in page histories is a problem.
This may be "pure wiki" and therefore desirable from a social point of view, if you take the viewpoint that Wikipedia is a wiki as would conventionally be seen. I suggest, however, that many ideas about wikis do not apply to Wikipedia because of the difference in scale and therefore vandalism.
I simply disagree!
In the end, we are going to force discussions over the matter. It is conventional WP philosophy that edit wars are not good. They attract trolls and POV-pushers and, in the end, force a tyranny of the majority, as the 3RR will always win. However, the discussions would essentially be AfD discussions about controversial articles.
No, AfD doesn't have "discussions", it has simple majority votes. PWDS would force *discussion* over voting, as the power to delete/undelete would belong to everyone, therefore everyone would have to agree on a course of action :-).
So we are back where we started.
So I ask this:
- What do we hope to gain by introducing PWDS?
- How do we handle the vandals who will blank a page (as many already
do for vandalism) then to claim "but I was deleting the article"?
1.See everything I've written and the above link 2. Any deletion blanking would still have to be justified on the talk page as per the Deletion policy, and also indicated in the edit summary - if not, it would simply be reverted as vandalism.
Dan
Revert wars wouldn't get very far due to the 3RR - it would force people to come to a *consensus* over whether or not to include an article, rather than just voting. I bet most deletions wouldn't be controversial (just as a lot of AfD listings aren't opposed). I don't see how having vandalism in page histories is a problem.
Dan
The 3RR is not massively effective in stoping revert wars. if you have an article that runs down the fault line between inclusionist and deletionist camps then it will have no effect whatsoever (well in theory it could turn wikipedia into a straight democracy).
geni wrote:
Revert wars wouldn't get very far due to the 3RR - it would force people to come to a *consensus* over whether or not to include an article, rather than just voting. I bet most deletions wouldn't be controversial (just as a lot of AfD listings aren't opposed). I don't see how having vandalism in page histories is a problem.
Dan
The 3RR is not massively effective in stoping revert wars. if you have an article that runs down the fault line between inclusionist and deletionist camps then it will have no effect whatsoever (well in theory it could turn wikipedia into a straight democracy).
Thee we have it! Democracy cannot be gay. :-)
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
geni wrote:
Revert wars wouldn't get very far due to the 3RR - it would force people to come to a *consensus* over whether or not to include an article, rather than just voting. I bet most deletions wouldn't be controversial (just as a lot of AfD listings aren't opposed). I don't see how having vandalism in page histories is a problem.
Dan
The 3RR is not massively effective in stoping revert wars. if you have an article that runs down the fault line between inclusionist and deletionist camps then it will have no effect whatsoever (well in theory it could turn wikipedia into a straight democracy).
Thee we have it! Democracy cannot be gay. :-)
Can it at least be happy then? :P
On 12/09/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote: Revert wars wouldn't get very far due to the 3RR - it would force people to come to a *consensus* over whether or not to include an article, rather than just voting. I bet most deletions wouldn't be controversial (just as a lot of AfD listings aren't opposed). I don't see how having vandalism in page histories is a problem.
But you are advocating setting up a system that encourages revert-warring. Not good. As in, NOT good. Revert wars are bad. They encourage bad faith and aggression more than anything else _including_ AfD/VfD.
This may be "pure wiki" and therefore desirable from a social point of view, if you take the viewpoint that Wikipedia is a wiki as would conventionally be seen. I suggest, however, that many ideas about wikis do not apply to Wikipedia because of the difference in scale and therefore vandalism.
I simply disagree!
Fair enough. But would you agree that Wikipedia is _more_ than the wiki as it was originally envisaged?
In the end, we are going to force discussions over the matter. It is conventional WP philosophy that edit wars are not good. They attract trolls and POV-pushers and, in the end, force a tyranny of the majority, as the 3RR will always win. However, the discussions would essentially be AfD discussions about controversial articles.
No, AfD doesn't have "discussions", it has simple majority votes. PWDS would force *discussion* over voting, as the power to delete/undelete would belong to everyone, therefore everyone would have to agree on a course of action :-).
AfD emphatically _does_ have discussions. They are _not_ majority votes. If they are being closed as such by some, then fry those who are closing incorrectly. Wikipedia works by consensus. Moving the discussion to the talk page does precisely nothing to alter that. AfD is _not_ a majority vote. (Incidentally, just to dispel a popular myth, in the English language, vote != majority vote. I do distinguish between them.)
So we are back where we started.
So I ask this:
- What do we hope to gain by introducing PWDS?
- How do we handle the vandals who will blank a page (as many already
do for vandalism) then to claim "but I was deleting the article"?
1.See everything I've written and the above link 2. Any deletion blanking would still have to be justified on the talk page as per the Deletion policy, and also indicated in the edit summary - if not, it would simply be reverted as vandalism.
1. The only reason that I see is consistency. That is not enough for me to support a whole new approach to much of Wikipedia. 2. OK, I'll take a slightly different tack. Administrators are given the power to delete articles because they are trusted. People know that they will not go and delete a little out-of-the-way page. But what is to stop a vandal or a troll from doing that? We are given no level of safety against this behaviour.
Bureaucracy may not be pretty. It may not be democratic. But I firmly believe it is for the good of the encyclopaedia.
And that's the key.
Sam
On 13/09/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
No, AfD doesn't have "discussions", it has simple majority votes. PWDS would force *discussion* over voting, as the power to delete/undelete would belong to everyone, therefore everyone would have to agree on a course of action :-).
AfD emphatically _does_ have discussions. They are _not_ majority votes. If they are being closed as such by some, then fry those who are closing incorrectly. Wikipedia works by consensus. Moving the discussion to the talk page does precisely nothing to alter that. AfD is _not_ a majority vote. (Incidentally, just to dispel a popular myth, in the English language, vote != majority vote. I do distinguish between them.)
Even if you say it twice, it doesn't change reality - AfD is a voting page.
So I ask this:
- What do we hope to gain by introducing PWDS?
- How do we handle the vandals who will blank a page (as many already
do for vandalism) then to claim "but I was deleting the article"?
1.See everything I've written and the above link 2. Any deletion blanking would still have to be justified on the talk page as per the Deletion policy, and also indicated in the edit summary - if not, it would simply be reverted as vandalism.
- OK, I'll take a slightly different tack. Administrators are given
the power to delete articles because they are trusted. People know that they will not go and delete a little out-of-the-way page. But what is to stop a vandal or a troll from doing that? We are given no level of safety against this behaviour.
And that's different from vandals blanking pages as they already do, how?
Dan
On 9/14/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
Even if you say it twice, it doesn't change reality - AfD is a voting page.
I disagree. People vote, but that doesn't make it a voting page.
And that's different from vandals blanking pages as they already do, how?
Currently, a blank page means something has gone wrong. Under PWDS, it would take some investigation to find out that something had gone wrong. Do you do RC patrol? I do, and I know that this would hinder my work in that area.
Sam
On 9/14/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
...Do you do RC patrol? I do, and I know that this would hinder my work in that area.
I don't see why it would hinder our work, it would still show up in the logs. And the redlinks there would make it stand out..
Sam Korn wrote:
On 9/14/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
And that's different from vandals blanking pages as they already do, how?
Currently, a blank page means something has gone wrong. Under PWDS, it would take some investigation to find out that something had gone wrong. Do you do RC patrol? I do, and I know that this would hinder my work in that area.
Not to mention the mess it would make of [[Special:Shortpages]]...
From: Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com
Revert wars wouldn't get very far due to the 3RR - it would force people to come to a *consensus* over whether or not to include an article, rather than just voting.
With 3 people on each side of a delete vote, I could see them getting quite far.
In the end, we are going to force discussions over the matter. It is conventional WP philosophy that edit wars are not good. They attract trolls and POV-pushers and, in the end, force a tyranny of the majority, as the 3RR will always win. However, the discussions would essentially be AfD discussions about controversial articles.
No, AfD doesn't have "discussions", it has simple majority votes. PWDS would force *discussion* over voting, as the power to delete/undelete would belong to everyone, therefore everyone would have to agree on a course of action :-).
AfD has plenty of discussions, and quite often people changing their votes as a result of the discussions, or as a result of changes to the article itself. However, "PWDS" would more likely simply result in endless revert wars - I see no reason to think that any discussion would be "forced", and Wikipedia consensus isn't about *everyone* agreeing, but rather most people agreeing. Creators of an article will almost never agree it is a good idea to delete it, regardless of the amount of discussion.
Jay.
From: Phroziac phroziac@gmail.com
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
I can't imagine why anyone would imagine it needs to die, or what they imagine would handle the dozens of silly articles added to Wikipedia each day which rightfully should be deleted. Let's try to remember that 90% of the articles nominated for deletion should, without question, be deleted. The fact that some people feel the "culture" at AfD has become "toxic" is perhaps an issue that should be addressed, but let's not continue to assert that AfD needs to go simply based on the 10% of nominations that are more controversial.
Jay.
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050911 18:41]:
From: Phroziac phroziac@gmail.com
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
I can't imagine why anyone would imagine it needs to die,
Well, I've been trying to explain ... we have two forks so far caused directly by the way the current deletion mechanism works socially. How many more would be enough?
or what they imagine would handle the dozens of silly articles added to Wikipedia each day which rightfully should be deleted.
They can collect for a month while we try to work out a less toxic deletion mechanism that will scale.
Let's try to remember that 90% of the articles nominated for deletion should, without question, be deleted. The fact that some people feel the "culture" at AfD has become "toxic" is perhaps an issue that should be addressed, but let's not continue to assert that AfD needs to go simply based on the 10% of nominations that are more controversial.
No, it needs to go based on the effects on the community of those 10% (I would have said 2-5% myself, but anyway).
- d.
On 12/09/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
imagine would handle the dozens of silly articles added to Wikipedia each day which rightfully should be deleted.
They can collect for a month while we try to work out a less toxic deletion mechanism that will scale.
This, in itself, would form an interesting experiment. slap together a holding page, redirect VfD to it, have people list anything they would otherwise have vfd'ed. Then, after a month or so, see how many have been speedied, redirected, cleaned-up, or otherwise "neutralised"...
G'day Andrew,
On 12/09/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
imagine would handle the dozens of silly articles added to Wikipedia each day which rightfully should be deleted.
They can collect for a month while we try to work out a less toxic deletion mechanism that will scale.
This, in itself, would form an interesting experiment. slap together a holding page, redirect VfD to it, have people list anything they would otherwise have vfd'ed. Then, after a month or so, see how many have been speedied, redirected, cleaned-up, or otherwise "neutralised"...
I like it ...
G'day David,
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050911 18:41]:
From: Phroziac phroziac@gmail.com
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
I can't imagine why anyone would imagine it needs to die,
Well, I've been trying to explain ... we have two forks so far caused directly by the way the current deletion mechanism works socially. How many more would be enough?
Depends on the fork, I guess. A fork to give fandom something non-encyclopaedic to write about is a Good Thing; a fork because ignorant people on VfD were being ignorant (ahem) is a Bad Thing. What sort of fork are we talking about, for certs? Would anybody shed tears if /Star Wars/ fans decided that they were going to setup a wiki of their own to discuss non-canon but doubtless "notable" characters?
VfD *is* toxic. It's toxic because those on VfD are getting jaded by seeing more and more ridiculous articles crop up, and have become more and more nasty about them, and forgetting that the entries were created in good faith (usually those that aren't are CSD) by a contributor who actually cares about whatever it is. There's the "delete" side: jaded, nasty, jeering. Then we get to "keep": argumentative, whiny, refusing to read or understand the delete guidelines.
I'm sure it won't be this simple, but: - People nominating for VfD should be forced to explain why the article must be deleted, else the VfD subpage itself should be speedied and a note posted on the nominator's talkpage. - There should be a notice on every VfD page and subpage explaining that: -- a nomination is not a reflection on the contributor -- "unencyclopaedic" doesn't mean "unimportant" -- all discussion must be kept civil
Should help a little, surely?
<snip />
Mark Gallagher wrote: <snip>
I'm sure it won't be this simple, but:
- People nominating for VfD should be forced to explain why the article must be deleted, else the VfD subpage itself should be speedied and a note posted on the nominator's talkpage.
- There should be a notice on every VfD page and subpage explaining that:
-- a nomination is not a reflection on the contributor -- "unencyclopaedic" doesn't mean "unimportant" -- all discussion must be kept civil
Should help a little, surely?
Indeed. I've pointed this out a few times (both on people's talk pages and the mailing list). I think that is what most of the mor^H^Heatpuppets from Livejournal failed to notice everytime they came and vote-stacked a V/AFD.
From: fun@thingy.apana.org.au (David Gerard)
JAY JG (jayjg@hotmail.com) [050911 18:41]:
From: Phroziac phroziac@gmail.com
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
I can't imagine why anyone would imagine it needs to die,
Well, I've been trying to explain ... we have two forks so far caused directly by the way the current deletion mechanism works socially. How many more would be enough?
It depends on the content and viability of those forks. Are they forks that contain information that would be suited to Wikipedia? Does Wikipedia suffer by not having those articles? Is it likely they will still be around in 2 years?
or what they imagine would handle the dozens of silly articles added to Wikipedia
each
day which rightfully should be deleted.
They can collect for a month while we try to work out a less toxic deletion mechanism that will scale.
As it is AFD is overloaded; how will the new mechanism deal with the daily onslaught *and* 5000 articles that have piled up while we were searching for some new ideal mechanism?
Let's try to remember that 90% of the articles nominated for deletion should, without question, be
deleted.
The fact that some people feel the "culture" at AfD has become "toxic"
is
perhaps an issue that should be addressed, but let's not continue to
assert
that AfD needs to go simply based on the 10% of nominations that are
more
controversial.
No, it needs to go based on the effects on the community of those 10% (I would have said 2-5% myself, but anyway).
I agree that it's under 5% that are truly controversial, but I didn't want to overstate the case.
Jay.
On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
But die to be replaced with what?
Deletion is absolutely necessary. A community process for deletion is absolutely necessary.
Pure wiki deletion system.
Dan
On 9/11/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
Pure wiki deletion system.
That would actually fix nothing. All it would do is granularise deletion discussions. We would have limits on the numbers of reverts to blank pages to stop edit wars, and force discussion. So we end up with deletion discussions on controversial topics.
What has this solved?
Sam
G'day Dan,
On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
But die to be replaced with what?
Deletion is absolutely necessary. A community process for deletion is absolutely necessary.
Pure wiki deletion system.
A vandal's paradise.
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Dan,
Pure wiki deletion system.
A vandal's paradise.
Vandals can _already_ blank pages. Other people notice the blanking, check what's been blanked in the history, and if they think it was inappropriate they revert it. What would change?
Lack of closure, for one thing. I don't necessarily think the current way works but at least you get some centralized discussion. My vision of the "pure wiki deletion system" is one in which, after a week of revert warring, people start complaining on some centralized place, filing RfCs, etc., until finally it comes down to ten editors saying "don't recreate the page or you'll get banned" which is really all AfD or VfD was doing anyway.
There will always eventually be "discussion" at some point for the articles that people are going to force it over. And said discussion will probably always have bouts of "nastiness" if it's about whether someone's grandma is notable or not.
In fact... maybe the best approach is not to encourage more commenting on voting in VfD, but to discourage it! A simple vote of "keep" or "delete", no discussion, no nastiness! (I'm only half joking.. but the half that is joking is indeed joking)
The other thing of course is that blank pages are still indexed by Google and our own sad little search engine, if I understand it correctly. We could change this, of course, without too much difficulty in Media Wiki (just have it insert a noindex noarchive robot tag whenever it creates its cache of a page with no data or less than X characters or whatever), so that's just a minor quibble. Blank pages would also not appear as red links in the current implementation. But this, I'm sure, could also be changed.
FF
On 9/12/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Dan,
Pure wiki deletion system.
A vandal's paradise.
Vandals can _already_ blank pages. Other people notice the blanking, check what's been blanked in the history, and if they think it was inappropriate they revert it. What would change?
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Then it simply becomes a vote, and not a straw poll to build consensus. For example, when closing an afd, if someone says it's a copyvio of www.google.com, it'll be deleted no matter how many keep votes there are. And [[George W. Bush]] always gets speedy kept. And [[Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion]] too. The big thing i hate about vfd is the ban on merging or moving an article for a week. You don't need consensus other then what any other regular editorial function would need to merge something. And non-admins can't speedy keep, can they?
On 9/12/05, Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
Lack of closure, for one thing. I don't necessarily think the current way works but at least you get some centralized discussion. My vision of the "pure wiki deletion system" is one in which, after a week of revert warring, people start complaining on some centralized place, filing RfCs, etc., until finally it comes down to ten editors saying "don't recreate the page or you'll get banned" which is really all AfD or VfD was doing anyway.
There will always eventually be "discussion" at some point for the articles that people are going to force it over. And said discussion will probably always have bouts of "nastiness" if it's about whether someone's grandma is notable or not.
In fact... maybe the best approach is not to encourage more commenting on voting in VfD, but to discourage it! A simple vote of "keep" or "delete", no discussion, no nastiness! (I'm only half joking.. but the half that is joking is indeed joking)
The other thing of course is that blank pages are still indexed by Google and our own sad little search engine, if I understand it correctly. We could change this, of course, without too much difficulty in Media Wiki (just have it insert a noindex noarchive robot tag whenever it creates its cache of a page with no data or less than X characters or whatever), so that's just a minor quibble. Blank pages would also not appear as red links in the current implementation. But this, I'm sure, could also be changed.
FF
On 9/12/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Dan,
Pure wiki deletion system.
A vandal's paradise.
Vandals can _already_ blank pages. Other people notice the blanking, check what's been blanked in the history, and if they think it was inappropriate they revert it. What would change?
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
Phroziac wrote:
Then it simply becomes a vote, and not a straw poll to build consensus. For example, when closing an afd, if someone says it's a copyvio of www.google.com, it'll be deleted no matter how many keep votes there are. And [[George W. Bush]] always gets speedy kept. And [[Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion]] too. The big thing i hate about vfd is the ban on merging or moving an article for a week. You don't need consensus other then what any other regular editorial function would need to merge something. And non-admins can't speedy keep, can they?
Yes, they just punch the right buttons. The only thing a non-admin can't do in closing a VFD is to delete the page. (What that can do is mark it with {{db|per AFD [[|link]]}}). I should know; I've closed quite a few in the backlog, and I'm not an admin.
G'day Bryan,
Mark Gallagher wrote:
G'day Dan,
Pure wiki deletion system.
A vandal's paradise.
Vandals can _already_ blank pages. Other people notice the blanking, check what's been blanked in the history, and if they think it was inappropriate they revert it. What would change?
Under "pure wiki deletion system", AIUI, blank pages are effectively no different from deleted pages. At present, an experienced editor coming across a blank page would say "that's funny, we shouldn't have blank pages," and revert, then either put it up for AfD or move on.
If all blank pages are redlinks, then one obvious clue that a page should exist would disappear. How many people would follow a redlink (given the gigantic amount we have on en-WP) just to see if it has any history?
On 11/09/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
Deletion is absolutely necessary. A community process for deletion is absolutely necessary.
Pure wiki deletion system.
For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?
On 9/12/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?
The basic idea is that a page is "deleted" by being blanked by any user. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)
Angela.
Sounds great.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 9/12/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/12/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?
The basic idea is that a page is "deleted" by being blanked by any user. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)
Angela. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
From: Angela beesley@gmail.com
For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?
The basic idea is that a page is "deleted" by being blanked by any user. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)
Well, that sounds like a recipe for edit warring - in fact, page blankers are typically viewed as vandals. Is there something un-wiki about trying to find consensus on the matter on a special page devoted to those kinds of discussions - say, something like AfD?
Jay.
On 9/11/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
Well, that sounds like a recipe for edit warring - in fact, page blankers are typically viewed as vandals. Is there something un-wiki about trying to find consensus on the matter on a special page devoted to those kinds of discussions - say, something like AfD?
Having the discussions in a single place e.g. AfD biases the case towards those whose interest is in general deletion policy, whether they be deletionist, inclusionist, or whatever; in other words, regulars of that page. Page deletion by blanking would be accompanied by discussion on the talk page for an article, biasing the case towards those who care about the article. Both have their flaws.
-Matt
On 12/09/05, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Having the discussions in a single place e.g. AfD biases the case towards those whose interest is in general deletion policy, whether they be deletionist, inclusionist, or whatever; in other words, regulars of that page. Page deletion by blanking would be accompanied by discussion on the talk page for an article, biasing the case towards those who care about the article. Both have their flaws.
Spot on. Personally, I favour the PWDS because it would take deletion out the hands of the folk who just hang around on AfD, and quite possibly end the majority democracy which seems to be the norm on AfD.
Further, if deletion was in the hands of everyone, they'd have to reach a consensus - if they want to edit war over it, they're welcome to take 24 hours every fourth revert to reconsider their position ;-).
Of course, PWDS will never be installed, as the entrenched AfD zealots will never concede to any change that threatens their pastime.
Dan
Takes it out of their hands and puts it into whose? The editors who happen to have said page on their watchlist? Those who care enough about an article to continually undelete it? Those with the most patience?
(I'm not an AfD zealot, personally. There are, I think, reasons for non-zealots to wonder if a PWDS would be best for this project.)
FF
On 9/12/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/09/05, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Having the discussions in a single place e.g. AfD biases the case towards those whose interest is in general deletion policy, whether they be deletionist, inclusionist, or whatever; in other words, regulars of that page. Page deletion by blanking would be accompanied by discussion on the talk page for an article, biasing the case towards those who care about the article. Both have their flaws.
Spot on. Personally, I favour the PWDS because it would take deletion out the hands of the folk who just hang around on AfD, and quite possibly end the majority democracy which seems to be the norm on AfD.
Further, if deletion was in the hands of everyone, they'd have to reach a consensus - if they want to edit war over it, they're welcome to take 24 hours every fourth revert to reconsider their position ;-).
Of course, PWDS will never be installed, as the entrenched AfD zealots will never concede to any change that threatens their pastime.
Dan _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/12/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
Spot on. Personally, I favour the PWDS because it would take deletion out the hands of the folk who just hang around on AfD, and quite possibly end the majority democracy which seems to be the norm on AfD.
Further, if deletion was in the hands of everyone, they'd have to reach a consensus - if they want to edit war over it, they're welcome to take 24 hours every fourth revert to reconsider their position ;-).
Of course, PWDS will never be installed, as the entrenched AfD zealots will never concede to any change that threatens their pastime.
Dan, you are one of the most vocal proponents of the PWDS. Please explain to me this: what would we gain by having revert wars over something, with blatantly obvious vandalism available in page histories, rather than deleting outright?
This may be "pure wiki" and therefore desirable from a social point of view, if you take the viewpoint that Wikipedia is a wiki as would conventionally be seen. I suggest, however, that many ideas about wikis do not apply to Wikipedia because of the difference in scale and therefore vandalism.
In the end, we are going to force discussions over the matter. It is conventional WP philosophy that edit wars are not good. They attract trolls and POV-pushers and, in the end, force a tyranny of the majority, as the 3RR will always win. However, the discussions would essentially be AfD discussions about controversial articles.
So we are back where we started.
So I ask this:
1) What do we hope to gain by introducing PWDS? 2) How do we handle the vandals who will blank a page (as many already do for vandalism) then to claim "but I was deleting the article"?
If the only reasons are ideological, I don't think PWDS is valid. Otherwise, I am open to persuasion.
Yours, Sam
Dan Grey wrote:
Spot on. Personally, I favour the PWDS because it would take deletion out the hands of the folk who just hang around on AfD, and quite possibly end the majority democracy which seems to be the norm on AfD.
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
Of course, PWDS will never be installed, as the entrenched AfD zealots will never concede to any change that threatens their pastime.
The one-month VfD suspension Gerard suggested to force serious reform might be workable, if we do it in a somewhat more organized manner than Ed Poor's heroic deletion of VfD. I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the VfD reform effort until just recently, do you think perhaps we could get together a posse capable of making such a thing stick?
On 13/09/05, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Dan Grey wrote:
Spot on. Personally, I favour the PWDS because it would take deletion out the hands of the folk who just hang around on AfD, and quite possibly end the majority democracy which seems to be the norm on AfD.
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
Of course, PWDS will never be installed, as the entrenched AfD zealots will never concede to any change that threatens their pastime.
The one-month VfD suspension Gerard suggested to force serious reform might be workable, if we do it in a somewhat more organized manner than Ed Poor's heroic deletion of VfD. I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the VfD reform effort until just recently, do you think perhaps we could get together a posse capable of making such a thing stick?
Had you done it a month ago... but people may be resistant to a second major upheaval in a couple of weeks, given the mutterings about the last one.
On 9/12/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Had you done it a month ago... but people may be resistant to a second major upheaval in a couple of weeks, given the mutterings about the last one.
Excellent point. I agree completely. Even the most extreme inclusionists should recognize the fact that the deletionists are also trying in earnest to improve Wikipedia. Taking away something that many of them certainly see as <u>a primary tool in their toolbox</u> for improving Wikipedia for a month is not very considerate of their feelings.
Some form of "consensus to remove bad articles" is a vital organ to Wikipedia. Poison cannot be safely removed from a body by removing a vital organ. Something less extreme than suspending AfD/VfD is in order.
I never tire of explaining, again and again, at various times, my own views regarding certain articles worth keeping. I do this mainly because people who fully understand each others' motives seldom hold long term grudges.
I suggest we consider adding an optional "hidden from casual browsers" flag to Wikipedia article records, so that we would have a two level deletion system: complete crap gets speedied, bad articles get deleted as usual, good articles get kept as usual, and questionable articles are shuffled off to limbo where they can be further developed before being put back into the main articlespace. (I'm not even sure how much I like this idea myself, but thought I'd throw it out there.)
Michael Turley wrote:
I suggest we consider adding an optional "hidden from casual browsers" flag to Wikipedia article records, so that we would have a two level deletion system: complete crap gets speedied, bad articles get deleted as usual, good articles get kept as usual, and questionable articles are shuffled off to limbo where they can be further developed before being put back into the main articlespace. (I'm not even sure how much I like this idea myself, but thought I'd throw it out there.)
TINC.
On 9/13/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Michael Turley wrote:
I suggest we consider adding an optional "hidden from casual browsers" flag to Wikipedia article records, so that we would have a two level deletion system: complete crap gets speedied, bad articles get deleted as usual, good articles get kept as usual, and questionable articles are shuffled off to limbo where they can be further developed before being put back into the main articlespace. (I'm not even sure how much I like this idea myself, but thought I'd throw it out there.)
TINC.
I don't see how that applies here. Please explain what you mean.
Michael Turley wrote:
On 9/13/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Michael Turley wrote:
I suggest we consider adding an optional "hidden from casual browsers" flag to Wikipedia article records, so that we would have a two level deletion system: complete crap gets speedied, bad articles get deleted as usual, good articles get kept as usual, and questionable articles are shuffled off to limbo where they can be further developed before being put back into the main articlespace. (I'm not even sure how much I like this idea myself, but thought I'd throw it out there.)
TINC.
I don't see how that applies here. Please explain what you mean.
How do we decide what is visible to which editors? Should they be visible only to sysops, or only to logged in editors? Or only editors with a certain number of edits? Or accounts which are not in the newest 1% (a la page moves)?
On 9/13/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Michael Turley wrote:
On 9/13/05, Alphax alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
Michael Turley wrote:
I suggest we consider adding an optional "hidden from casual browsers" flag to Wikipedia article records, so that we would have a two level deletion system: complete crap gets speedied, bad articles get deleted as usual, good articles get kept as usual, and questionable articles are shuffled off to limbo where they can be further developed before being put back into the main articlespace. (I'm not even sure how much I like this idea myself, but thought I'd throw it out there.)
TINC.
I don't see how that applies here. Please explain what you mean.
How do we decide what is visible to which editors? Should they be visible only to sysops, or only to logged in editors? Or only editors with a certain number of edits? Or accounts which are not in the newest 1% (a la page moves)?
Well, I'm open to other ideas, but the way I envisioned it, it would be a separate article space that is open to everyone, but not immediately visible from the front page, nor included in searches unless explicitly included.
Call it "article limbo" or "marginal articles" or "not quite encyclopedic enough to suit the general public, but this is a pretty close try articles" if you will, but I wouldn't lock the content away from anyone. Instead, just put it in a virtual cupboard, away from casual view where editors who are interested can work the articles without the timeline and "reconvince the delete voters" pressure, and then later appeal to have them brought into the main articlespace when they're ready.
We'd have the more scholarly, enforced to traditional standards Wikipedia that would keep the articles suitable for print versions, and the second level Limbopedia where editors are somewhat more free to pursue their own interests and share more localized, more specific knowledge without accusations of "cruft" and "not notable enough". Maybe most stubs would reside there, maybe not, I don't know. An internal fork, to make the main project more aligned with its goals, with the daughter project serving as an additional development area. Or maybe we should fork upward, with a brand new empty space to nominate our best articles into...
I still see room for argument, but since there would be more middle ground for resolution, I think we'd see more people finding middle ground.
(And speaking personally about an issue I care deeply about, I'd expect almost all school articles to reside in limbo, even though we almost always keep them now, and even though I think they almost always belong in the main article space... I should shut up before someone thinks this is a good idea...)
How do we decide what is visible to which editors? Should they be visible only to sysops, or only to logged in editors? Or only editors with a certain number of edits? Or accounts which are not in the newest 1% (a la page moves)?
Each reader may choose for emself whether to see "questionable" articles. This is really much the same as the "stable article version" discussion that has been under discussion for quite some time. A combination of stable article tagging and pure wiki deletion would probably serve quite nicely.
Kelly
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
If people are a problem deal with the people (any other aprach would result in us have to delete pretty much any high profile artilce if taken to it's logical conclusion.
On Mon, 12 Sep 2005, Bryan Derksen wrote:
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
How about only permitting people 3 votes per day in total?
-W.
William M Connolley | wmc@bas.ac.uk | http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/ Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | (01223) 221479 If I haven't seen further, it's because giants were standing on my shoulders
Anyone is encouraged to vote in Articles for Deletion. I am one of the regulars on the Articles for Deletion. One of the issues that has been ignored in this debate is that many articles have been improved beyond recognition as a result of the Articles for Deletion process. For many users, there a number of articles in which they have an intereste nominated on one day and none the day after.
We should be encouraging users to participate in the process not discouraging them with artificial limits. It seems that many people who don't participate in the process are the most vocal about its supposed deficiencies. It's a bit like complaining about the quality of the politicians that are running the country while you don't vote.
Keith
aka User: Capitalistroadster
On 9/13/05, William M Connolley wmc@bas.ac.uk wrote:
On Mon, 12 Sep 2005, Bryan Derksen wrote:
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
How about only permitting people 3 votes per day in total?
-W.
William M Connolley | wmc@bas.ac.uk | http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/ Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | (01223) 221479 If I haven't seen further, it's because giants were standing on my shoulders _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Keith Old wrote:
Anyone is encouraged to vote in Articles for Deletion. I am one of the regulars on the Articles for Deletion. One of the issues that has been ignored in this debate is that many articles have been improved beyond recognition as a result of the Articles for Deletion process. For many users, there a number of articles in which they have an intereste nominated on one day and none the day after.
We should be encouraging users to participate in the process not discouraging them with artificial limits. It seems that many people who don't participate in the process are the most vocal about its supposed deficiencies. It's a bit like complaining about the quality of the politicians that are running the country while you don't vote.
Keith
aka User: Capitalistroadster
Now there's a familiar face! I agree, there have been many articles which (at the time they were nominated) could probably have been speedied, but instead, they went to V/AFD and were improved to the point of valid stubs (or beyond). Not everyone who votes "delete" does so on every AFD page; not everyone who votes "keep" does so on every AFD page.
I think the biggest problem with AFD is the "Us and Them" mentality of the AIW and the ADW, playing a zero-sum game.
PROPOSAL: Delete these pages from meta straight away, notify all former members, and ban anyone who mentions them ever again...
Keith Old wrote:
We should be encouraging users to participate in the process not discouraging them with artificial limits. It seems that many people who don't participate in the process are the most vocal about its supposed deficiencies. It's a bit like complaining about the quality of the politicians that are running the country while you don't vote.
I used to participate, as part of doing new pages patrol, but between the socks and the ignorant, the whole thing was so unpleasant and inefficient that I moved on to other WP activities. It's kind of a shame, because I've read perhaps 10% of all of en's articles, and edited on some 15K of them, so I'm in a pretty good position to know what fits, what doesn't, and what's redundant - but it's pointless to participate in a process where those who know nothing of a subject area can outvote the people who actually know something. WP only works because 99% of the time the ignorant are willing to defer to the knowledgeable; but VfD process works in the opposite way - the knowledgeable are made to do extra work to overcome the objections of the ignorant.
Stan
area can outvote the people who actually know something. WP only works because 99% of the time the ignorant are willing to defer to the knowledgeable; but VfD process works in the opposite way - the knowledgeable are made to do extra work to overcome the objections of the ignorant.
Stan
VFD is part of Wikipedia, why would it work the opposite way from the rest of the wiki. It takes me just a minute to substantiate proof something is worth of an entry. Yes, it takes some time, but it's time well spent. That's exactly why AFD needs knowledgeable people.
Mgm
On 9/13/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
VFD is part of Wikipedia, why would it work the opposite way from the rest of the wiki. It takes me just a minute to substantiate proof something is worth of an entry. Yes, it takes some time, but it's time well spent. That's exactly why AFD needs knowledgeable people.
And if you come up with proof of relevance, your work will still be for naught if the howling boeotians refuse to recant their delete votes. And any admin who dares disregard a numerical consensus to delete when the minority side has a valid argument to keep will be wikisued: ask Tony Sidaway about this.
There's a lot of editors and admins who've given up on VFD/AFD precisely because of the problems Stan is talking about, including many of Wikipedia's best editors.
Kelly
On 9/13/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
VFD is part of Wikipedia, why would it work the opposite way from the rest of the wiki. It takes me just a minute to substantiate proof something is worth of an entry. Yes, it takes some time, but it's time well spent. That's exactly why AFD needs knowledgeable people.
And if you come up with proof of relevance, your work will still be for naught if the howling boeotians refuse to recant their delete votes. And any admin who dares disregard a numerical consensus to delete when the minority side has a valid argument to keep will be wikisued: ask Tony Sidaway about this.
There's a lot of editors and admins who've given up on VFD/AFD precisely because of the problems Stan is talking about, including many of Wikipedia's best editors.
Kelly
I've closed a VFD on a number of articles where the concensus was to delete. The article was rewritten right before the end and didn't resemble the original nominated article even remotely, so I based my closure on the votes made after the rewrite. I've yet to hear someone complain.
Such cases are exactly the ones you can bring to VFU. Drop the evidence on the doormat and see what happens. If anyone wants to call the AFD valid if reliable evidence is presented, I'd be happy to turn controversial.
(Sorry for the duplicate Kelly, I sent the message just to you instead of the full list.)
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
area can outvote the people who actually know something. WP only works because 99% of the time the ignorant are willing to defer to the knowledgeable; but VfD process works in the opposite way - the knowledgeable are made to do extra work to overcome the objections of the ignorant.
Stan
VFD is part of Wikipedia, why would it work the opposite way from the rest of the wiki. It takes me just a minute to substantiate proof something is worth of an entry. Yes, it takes some time, but it's time well spent. That's exactly why AFD needs knowledgeable people.
I could come up with several theories as to why it's evolved differently; for instance, a random's ill-informed vote for deletion has traditionally been given as much weight as an expert's vote to keep, whereas on article talk pages the expert is more likely to be supported against an ignorant. Talk page discussion is not on a fixed deadline; sometimes key input is contingent on a library visit or for the right person to find time to drop by, so there's no advantage to camping out on the page. Existing articles tend to have one or several editors committed to them, and they'll quietly fix bad driveby edits, while new articles can end up on VfD before potential expert defenders even notice their existence.
There are a hundred different ways that problematic new articles could be handled, and I think it's telling that some people seem unwilling even to consider that there might be better alternatives.
Stan
On 9/13/05, William M Connolley wmc@bas.ac.uk wrote:
How about only permitting people 3 votes per day in total?
How do you propose to enforce that?
Kelly
On Tue, 13 Sep 2005, Kelly Martin wrote:
On 9/13/05, William M Connolley wmc@bas.ac.uk wrote:
How about only permitting people 3 votes per day in total?
How do you propose to enforce that?
If it were thought to be a good idea, some way could be found.
-W.
William M Connolley | wmc@bas.ac.uk | http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/ Climate Modeller, British Antarctic Survey | (01223) 221479 If I haven't seen further, it's because giants were standing on my shoulders
G'day Kelly,
On 9/13/05, William M Connolley wmc@bas.ac.uk wrote:
How about only permitting people 3 votes per day in total?
How do you propose to enforce that?
Well, we could have people continually monitor AfD, making sure nobody steps over the line.
We'll just have to hope they're not tempted to vote while they're there ...
On 9/13/05, William M Connolley wmc@bas.ac.uk wrote:
On Mon, 12 Sep 2005, Bryan Derksen wrote:
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
How about only permitting people 3 votes per day in total?
-W.
Having a vote threshold simply won't work. Last night I closed 4 AfD's, all on Bus Stops (result was no consensus). What if each voter could only vote on 3 of the 4, and then no more articles at all? Besides, that would just increase the number of articles who don't get enough votes to reach consensus- they'd have to be relisted, increasing the AfD load.
Ral315 wrote:
Having a vote threshold simply won't work. Last night I closed 4 AfD's, all on Bus Stops (result was no consensus). What if each voter could only vote on 3 of the 4, and then no more articles at all? Besides, that would just increase the number of articles who don't get enough votes to reach consensus- they'd have to be relisted, increasing the AfD load.
Bus terminals. Not bus stops.
On 9/13/05, SPUI drspui@gmail.com wrote:
Ral315 wrote:
Having a vote threshold simply won't work. Last night I closed 4 AfD's,
all
on Bus Stops (result was no consensus). What if each voter could only
vote
on 3 of the 4, and then no more articles at all? Besides, that would
just
increase the number of articles who don't get enough votes to reach consensus- they'd have to be relisted, increasing the AfD load.
Bus terminals. Not bus stops.
(sigh) See what happens when you don't pay attention when you post to the list? My point still stands nevertheless.
Ral315 wrote:
On 9/13/05, William M Connolley wmc@bas.ac.uk wrote:
On Mon, 12 Sep 2005, Bryan Derksen wrote:
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
How about only permitting people 3 votes per day in total?
-W.
Having a vote threshold simply won't work. Last night I closed 4 AfD's, all on Bus Stops (result was no consensus). What if each voter could only vote on 3 of the 4, and then no more articles at all? Besides, that would just increase the number of articles who don't get enough votes to reach consensus- they'd have to be relisted, increasing the AfD load.
We like to limit the frequency with which bots can edit.
What might be a little more practical than 3 votes per day would be a minimum 15 minute wait between votes. This would give the person time to think between votes.
Ec
What might be a little more practical than 3 votes per day would be a minimum 15 minute wait between votes. This would give the person time to think between votes.
Ec
Forcing people to think through their view wouldn't be such a bad idea, but 5 minutes of thinking for one article should suffice especially when you can base your vote on clear policy as WPINAD and the like.
From: Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
The last thing we need is a group of specialists who actually care about what kinds of articles are encyclopedic, and fall within Wikipedia's mandate and policies, and what kinds are not? Who aren't actually emotionally tied up in the subject matter, but instead are able to view the topic with dispassionate reason? Instead we should leave decisions about these things to one-off partisans who create articles on their narrow areas of interest (e.g. the band they just founded, or flags which are red white and blue and have stars on them)?
I find that argument difficult to accept.
Jay.
JAY JG wrote:
From: Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
The last thing we need is a group of specialists who actually care about what kinds of articles are encyclopedic, and fall within Wikipedia's mandate and policies, and what kinds are not? Who aren't actually emotionally tied up in the subject matter, but instead are able to view the topic with dispassionate reason? Instead we should leave decisions about these things to one-off partisans who create articles on their narrow areas of interest (e.g. the band they just founded, or flags which are red white and blue and have stars on them)?
But they're not allowed to have a Union Jack on them, belong to a country formerly ruled by Spain, or be in any way derived from the Flag of the United States?
Yep, I think I'll go make [[List of countries which are not the United States of America or one of it's allies]] right now.
JAY JG wrote:
From: Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca
Hear hear. Instead of moving VfD to AfD, we might as well have moved it to "Wikiproject Deletion." The last thing we need is a group of people who _specialize_ in deciding what articles are allowed in Wikipedia. The small, obscure articles don't get many people from outside the VfD regulars to consider the matter.
The last thing we need is a group of specialists who actually care about what kinds of articles are encyclopedic, and fall within Wikipedia's mandate and policies, and what kinds are not?
The problem is not that they "care", but that they're the ones who are _deciding_.
And a VfD that's justified with the code "NN, D" is clearly not the work of someone who cares, IMO. The fact that such VfDs aren't removed out of hand is what makes me so concerned with the current system.
Who aren't actually emotionally tied up in the subject matter, but instead are able to view the topic with dispassionate reason?
Who don't actually know anything about the subject matter, but instead come up with a vote based on a moment's thought about whether they've heard of it before?
I'm not going to go through and state the flipside of every point you make, hopefully this is sufficiently illustrative. Different people have very different views on what's "good", and a heck of a lot of people (myself included) are voicing views that the current system is ungood. In the spirit of consensus-building, please at least consider that maybe things will have to change to satisfy the complainers, but that perhaps there's some system to change to that we will all like. This doesn't have to be adversarial.
The last thing we need is a group of specialists who actually care about what kinds of articles are encyclopedic, and fall within Wikipedia's mandate and policies, and what kinds are not?
The problem is not that they "care", but that they're the ones who are _deciding_.
And a VfD that's justified with the code "NN, D" is clearly not the work of someone who cares, IMO. The fact that such VfDs aren't removed out of hand is what makes me so concerned with the current system.
Who aren't actually emotionally tied up in the subject matter, but instead are able to view the topic with dispassionate reason?
Who don't actually know anything about the subject matter, but instead come up with a vote based on a moment's thought about whether they've heard of it before?
I'm not going to go through and state the flipside of every point you make, hopefully this is sufficiently illustrative. Different people have very different views on what's "good", and a heck of a lot of people (myself included) are voicing views that the current system is ungood. In the spirit of consensus-building, please at least consider that maybe things will have to change to satisfy the complainers, but that perhaps there's some system to change to that we will all like. This doesn't have to be adversarial. _______________________________________________
That's what I see as a good thing. By involving people in the discussion who are not emotionally attached to the subject being discussed we can get views from outside the field of "fanatics" (sorry for not knowing a better word here).
I always try to back up my vote with some point of policy or research (see the photographer on AFD today). More people should base their votes off facts instead of "Keep, X is good/encyclopedic/verifiable". They should address the policy point that's being addressed. I.e "What do you mean not-notable? They were the main guest on Oprah last week and they have a top 100 Amazon sales rank." instead of "Writers are notable".
You could change the deletion process a thousand times, but if people put their own feelings of what should be included in the discussion (and preferably immediately). We'd agree on stuff a lot easier.
For example whether a substub should've been deleted wouldn't even be up for discussion if someone started with a larger article.
We should adress the source of the ill-feelings and not the symptoms.
--Mgm
On 9/14/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
That's what I see as a good thing. By involving people in the discussion who are not emotionally attached to the subject being discussed we can get views from outside the field of "fanatics" (sorry for not knowing a better word here).
I always try to back up my vote with some point of policy or research (see the photographer on AFD today). More people should base their votes off facts instead of "Keep, X is good/encyclopedic/verifiable". They should address the policy point that's being addressed. I.e "What do you mean not-notable? They were the main guest on Oprah last week and they have a top 100 Amazon sales rank." instead of "Writers are notable".
You could change the deletion process a thousand times, but if people put their own feelings of what should be included in the discussion (and preferably immediately). We'd agree on stuff a lot easier.
Perhaps closing admins should simply ignore opinions of the form "nn, delete" and "Keep all schools". People will stop offering such such bland opinions if they realize that their input is being ignored and will instead offer more useful commentary.
I'm also entirely in favor of speedy closing any listing where the nomination offers no more than "nn, delete" or the equivalent. Subsequent opiners can merely be indicating their support for the nominator's argument, but at least the nominator is and ought to be obliged to make a non-facile argument for the deletion of the article.
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
Perhaps closing admins should simply ignore opinions of the form "nn, delete" and "Keep all schools". People will stop offering such such bland opinions if they realize that their input is being ignored and will instead offer more useful commentary.
What if "keep all schools" is the reason the person is voting to keep? There are many that feel that all X for some X are "notable".
On 9/14/05, SPUI drspui@gmail.com wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:
Perhaps closing admins should simply ignore opinions of the form "nn, delete" and "Keep all schools". People will stop offering such such bland opinions if they realize that their input is being ignored and will instead offer more useful commentary.
What if "keep all schools" is the reason the person is voting to keep? There are many that feel that all X for some X are "notable".
I would recommend that such opinions be given low (or perhaps even no) weight. Arguments to keep or delete an article on the merits of the specific article (or, rather, the subject of the article, which should be the main basis for a keep/delete decision) should be given more weight than those based on any categories in which the article (or its subject) might happen to fall in.
Kelly
Kelly Martin wrote:
On 9/14/05, SPUI drspui@gmail.com wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:
Perhaps closing admins should simply ignore opinions of the form "nn, delete" and "Keep all schools". People will stop offering such such bland opinions if they realize that their input is being ignored and will instead offer more useful commentary.
What if "keep all schools" is the reason the person is voting to keep? There are many that feel that all X for some X are "notable".
I would recommend that such opinions be given low (or perhaps even no) weight. Arguments to keep or delete an article on the merits of the specific article (or, rather, the subject of the article, which should be the main basis for a keep/delete decision) should be given more weight than those based on any categories in which the article (or its subject) might happen to fall in.
I'm not sure I understand. You're saying that VFD exists to delete badly-written articles on "notable" subjects? I've always understood that it's for figuring out whether the subject is "notable" enough. If what you say is true, VFD would be even bigger than it is now.
On 9/14/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/14/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
That's what I see as a good thing. By involving people in the discussion who are not emotionally attached to the subject being discussed we can get views from outside the field of "fanatics" (sorry for not knowing a better word here).
I always try to back up my vote with some point of policy or research (see the photographer on AFD today). More people should base their votes off facts instead of "Keep, X is good/encyclopedic/verifiable". They should address the policy point that's being addressed. I.e "What do you mean not-notable? They were the main guest on Oprah last week and they have a top 100 Amazon sales rank." instead of "Writers are notable".
You could change the deletion process a thousand times, but if people put their own feelings of what should be included in the discussion (and preferably immediately). We'd agree on stuff a lot easier.
Perhaps closing admins should simply ignore opinions of the form "nn, delete" and "Keep all schools". People will stop offering such such bland opinions if they realize that their input is being ignored and will instead offer more useful commentary.
Having a "bland" opinion doesn't mean that the opinion is incorrect.
I think all schools are inherently notable. I also think all US Presidents are inherently notable. Both are "bland" opinions, neither deserves less respect than the other, but judgements about their correctness must be made independently.
The schools issue is an especially bad example for when to demand further explanation, as we have an entire project page dedicated to the pro and con arguments, each fully explained, each fully rational, but each also diametrically opposed to the other. It's a bad idea to whack this hornet's nest again, demanding that everyone re-justify their views when they're already clearly laid out on a Wikipedia project page.
The only reason I don't reference the school project opinion page anymore is that I grew tired of constantly posting a wikilink that is unlikely to be clicked on. I apologize and will resume linking to the page the next time I vote "Keep" for a school.
The place where overly simplified arguments don't belong is in the nomination. Elsewhere, it depends on context.
On 9/14/05, Michael Turley michael.turley@gmail.com wrote:
The place where overly simplified arguments don't belong is in the nomination. Elsewhere, it depends on context.
I'll definitely agree with that. I'm totally in favor of speedy keeps for sketchy, overly vague nominations.
Kelly
On 9/14/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I'll definitely agree with that. I'm totally in favor of speedy keeps for sketchy, overly vague nominations.
There are occasions where a one-word reason for deletion is enough. For instance, take a absolutely clear-cut vanity article. You can sum up the reason for deletion in one word: "Vanity. ~~~~". You could write a sentence, or two, or three, in support of that, but it would never actually say more than the original statement.
Unless, of course, this is not what you meant by "sketch, overly vague nominations". If so, please elaborate!
Sam
On 9/14/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/14/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I'll definitely agree with that. I'm totally in favor of speedy keeps for sketchy, overly vague nominations.
There are occasions where a one-word reason for deletion is enough. For instance, take a absolutely clear-cut vanity article. You can sum up the reason for deletion in one word: "Vanity. ~~~~". You could write a sentence, or two, or three, in support of that, but it would never actually say more than the original statement.
Unless, of course, this is not what you meant by "sketch, overly vague nominations". If so, please elaborate!
I can't think of a single example where "Vanity. ~~~~" is not overly vague. I haven't objected to such nominations (that I recall) but certainly feel annoyed that the nominator cannot be bothered to be a little more specific when asking for consensus to remove an article.
"Vanity. No Google hits. ~~~~" is OK with me. "Vanity. Wikipedia shouldn't be used as a home page" is OK. "Vanity. These accomplishments aren't encyclopedic enough. ~~~~" is also a valid nomination in my mind.
"Vanity. ~~~~" doesn't give enough indication of the nominator's state of mind, so doesn't seem intended to actually start a discussion about why the article was nominated. Instead, it seems an appeal to "just get this thing over with" that I find disrespectful to the newbies that frequently make the error of posting vanity articles. That's why I object to vague and uninformative nominations; we're supposed to discuss the article, and the nominator cannot be bothered to start the discussion.
Michael Turley wrote:
On 9/14/05, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/14/05, Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote:
I'll definitely agree with that. I'm totally in favor of speedy keeps for sketchy, overly vague nominations.
There are occasions where a one-word reason for deletion is enough. For instance, take a absolutely clear-cut vanity article. You can sum up the reason for deletion in one word: "Vanity. ~~~~". You could write a sentence, or two, or three, in support of that, but it would never actually say more than the original statement.
Unless, of course, this is not what you meant by "sketch, overly vague nominations". If so, please elaborate!
I can't think of a single example where "Vanity. ~~~~" is not overly vague. I haven't objected to such nominations (that I recall) but certainly feel annoyed that the nominator cannot be bothered to be a little more specific when asking for consensus to remove an article.
"Vanity. No Google hits. ~~~~" is OK with me. "Vanity. Wikipedia shouldn't be used as a home page" is OK. "Vanity. These accomplishments aren't encyclopedic enough. ~~~~" is also a valid nomination in my mind.
"Vanity. ~~~~" doesn't give enough indication of the nominator's state of mind, so doesn't seem intended to actually start a discussion about why the article was nominated. Instead, it seems an appeal to "just get this thing over with" that I find disrespectful to the newbies that frequently make the error of posting vanity articles. That's why I object to vague and uninformative nominations; we're supposed to discuss the article, and the nominator cannot be bothered to start the discussion.
Agreed. See http://ln-s.net/7Uc for more.
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
I always try to back up my vote with some point of policy or research (see the photographer on AFD today). More people should base their votes off facts instead of "Keep, X is good/encyclopedic/verifiable". They should address the policy point that's being addressed. I.e "What do you mean not-notable? They were the main guest on Oprah last week and they have a top 100 Amazon sales rank." instead of "Writers are notable".
I believe that all state highways (at least in most states) are "notable", just as with state parks and such. Using any other argument that may apply to the current article on VFD just makes it more likely that someone will go and VFD a different one that doesn't match that argument.
On 9/14/05, SPUI drspui@gmail.com wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
I always try to back up my vote with some point of policy or research (see the photographer on AFD today). More people should base their votes off facts instead of "Keep, X is good/encyclopedic/verifiable". They should address the policy point that's being addressed. I.e "What do you mean not-notable? They were the main guest on Oprah last week and they have a top 100 Amazon sales rank." instead of "Writers are notable".
I believe that all state highways (at least in most states) are "notable", just as with state parks and such. Using any other argument that may apply to the current article on VFD just makes it more likely that someone will go and VFD a different one that doesn't match that argument. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
If all highways are notable, surely there's an argument that goes for all of them?
I was talking about an argument that doesn't involve anything de facto. While most people consider presidents clearly notable, I explained the reasons you could use to point it out.
My government also designates whether the field behind my house will be designated as a residential area or a green place. That doesn't neccesarily mean the place warrants an article.
It's exactly the comments that claim a certain category of articles is worth an entry by default (or not) that I'm trying to avoid here. Those are the cause of endless inclusionist vs. deletionist debates.
Can you actually point out any reasons that don't depend on de facto or by default notability?
On 9/15/05, SPUI drspui@gmail.com wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
If all highways are notable, surely there's an argument that goes for all of them?
Yeah, that they're designated by the state and de facto "notable". _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
I was talking about an argument that doesn't involve anything de facto. While most people consider presidents clearly notable, I explained the reasons you could use to point it out.
My government also designates whether the field behind my house will be designated as a residential area or a green place. That doesn't neccesarily mean the place warrants an article.
It's exactly the comments that claim a certain category of articles is worth an entry by default (or not) that I'm trying to avoid here. Those are the cause of endless inclusionist vs. deletionist debates.
Can you actually point out any reasons that don't depend on de facto or by default notability?
The state has decided to spend money not only to buy the right-of-way and maintain the road but to post markers that indicate that to the public and help them identify the road as a more important road. That to me says "notable".
On 9/16/05, SPUI drspui@gmail.com wrote:
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
I was talking about an argument that doesn't involve anything de facto. While most people consider presidents clearly notable, I explained the reasons you could use to point it out.
My government also designates whether the field behind my house will be designated as a residential area or a green place. That doesn't neccesarily mean the place warrants an article.
It's exactly the comments that claim a certain category of articles is worth an entry by default (or not) that I'm trying to avoid here. Those are the cause of endless inclusionist vs. deletionist debates.
Can you actually point out any reasons that don't depend on de facto or by default notability?
The state has decided to spend money not only to buy the right-of-way and maintain the road but to post markers that indicate that to the public and help them identify the road as a more important road. That to me says "notable".
sorvrin states have spent money on may things over the years. That doesn't make them notable.
geni wrote:
On 9/16/05, SPUI drspui@gmail.com wrote:
The state has decided to spend money not only to buy the right-of-way and maintain the road but to post markers that indicate that to the public and help them identify the road as a more important road. That to me says "notable".
sorvrin states have spent money on may things over the years. That doesn't make them notable.
And I claim that they are notable if they are marked highways. Want to have this argument on every fucking vfd for a state highway?
On 9/16/05, SPUI drspui@gmail.com wrote:
And I claim that they are notable if they are marked highways. Want to have this argument on every fucking vfd for a state highway?
arguments by assertion are really not very helpful and expletives don't really add to thier loigcal strength.
Timwi wrote:
SPUI wrote:
The state has decided to spend money [...] That to me says "notable".
Does that make every citizen of a country that spends money on issuing passports automatically notable?
No. If you had taken the time to read the whole thing, I also said that the state has decided to mark these roads with special signs to make it easier to get around. Stop trolling.
SPUI wrote:
Timwi wrote:
SPUI wrote:
The state has decided to spend money [...] That to me says "notable".
Does that make every citizen of a country that spends money on issuing passports automatically notable?
No. If you had taken the time to read the whole thing, I also said that the state has decided to mark these roads with special signs to make it easier to get around.
Go figure. The state has decided to keep a register of all passports to make it easier to find criminals.
Stop trolling.
Pointing out the absurdity of your argument is hardly trolling. By contrast, polemic remarks such as this one are more typical of trolls.
Timwi
On 9/16/05 12:43 PM, "Timwi" timwi@gmx.net wrote:
SPUI wrote:
Timwi wrote:
SPUI wrote:
The state has decided to spend money [...] That to me says "notable".
Does that make every citizen of a country that spends money on issuing passports automatically notable?
No. If you had taken the time to read the whole thing, I also said that the state has decided to mark these roads with special signs to make it easier to get around.
Go figure. The state has decided to keep a register of all passports to make it easier to find criminals.
Stop trolling.
Pointing out the absurdity of your argument is hardly trolling. By contrast, polemic remarks such as this one are more typical of trolls.
Look, ma! The monkeys are throwing their own poo at each other!
--tc (Pass the popcorn!)
SPUI wrote:
Timwi wrote:
SPUI wrote:
Stop trolling.
Pointing out the absurdity of your argument is hardly trolling. By contrast, polemic remarks such as this one are more typical of trolls.
Or people that are fed up with deletionism and the shit that comes with it.
Oh, now I understand. You completely misinterpreted my posting as a deletionist argument, therefore stamped your perception of me a deletionist, and thus conclude that I must be trolling.
I never thought I would manage to get myself misconstrued as a deletionist. Sometimes, I amaze myself.
Timwi
Angela wrote:
For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?
The basic idea is that a page is "deleted" by being blanked by any user. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)
I think people probably need to remember that we're using Wiki to *build an encyclopaedia*: Wiki is a means to an end, not the end itself.
Cheers,
N.
From: Nick Boalch n.g.boalch@durham.ac.uk
Angela wrote:
For the benefit of those of us without the relevant cultural background, what *is* the pure wiki deletion system?
The basic idea is that a page is "deleted" by being blanked by any user. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Pure_wiki_deletion_system_(proposal)
I think people probably need to remember that we're using Wiki to *build an encyclopaedia*: Wiki is a means to an end, not the end itself.
This is well worth repeating, since it seems to be so quickly forgotten. Ideally we should also get a developer to have it generated as an automated response to anyone who, on AfD, posts the phrase "Wikipedia is not paper". "No, but it *is* an encyclopedia".
Jay.
From: Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com
On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
But die to be replaced with what?
Deletion is absolutely necessary. A community process for deletion is absolutely necessary.
Pure wiki deletion system.
What is this "pure wiki deletion system" that people keep talking about?
Jay.
Dan Grey wrote:
On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
But die to be replaced with what?
Deletion is absolutely necessary. A community process for deletion is absolutely necessary.
Pure wiki deletion system.
Can you explain what you mean by that? In some detail?
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Dan Grey wrote:
On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
But die to be replaced with what?
Deletion is absolutely necessary. A community process for deletion is absolutely necessary.
Pure wiki deletion system.
Can you explain what you mean by that? In some detail?
As has been explained a few times now (and will probably need explaining a few more, because it's such a crazy idea) you "delete" pages by blanking them. A vandal's paradise.
Of course, we could adopt the "pure wiki deletion system on wheels", where you delete a page by moving it and then blanking the redirect...
Alphax wrote:
As has been explained a few times now (and will probably need explaining a few more, because it's such a crazy idea) you "delete" pages by blanking them. A vandal's paradise.
I don't see why this would be any more a vandal's paradise than the current setup, since vandals can already blank pages at will. We've survived so far. People would notice blanked pages and check the history to see if they should have been blanked or not, as they do now.
Of course, we could adopt the "pure wiki deletion system on wheels", where you delete a page by moving it and then blanking the redirect...
Why would we do that? There's no point to that extra step, it hides the edit history away somewhere useless and clutters the wiki with unnecessary extra pages.
I realize you're trying to be facetious, but in the process you're also implying that supporters of the "pure wiki deletion" idea are either irrational or in some way support vandalizing Wikipedia. Please assume good faith, enough people have proposed this technique at this point that I hope it's clear that it's not a result of raving lunacy.
Jimmy Wales wrote
Deletion is absolutely necessary. A community process for deletion is absolutely necessary.
As I understannd the 'pure wiki' proposal, it is not an article deletion but a version deletion. I think we need an article deletion process. I think we need a speedy process that catches more 'vanity' articles, but is reticent about deleting other factual stuff. There is no reason why we can't have a speedy category of redirection to a 'node' page, i.e. unpickable speedies. Finally, I think the AfD process should be reconfigured so that any request is tagged by a category/policy reason - speedies usually now tagged.
Charles
Jimmy Wales (jwales@wikia.com) [050912 07:47]:
Phroziac wrote:
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
But die to be replaced with what? Deletion is absolutely necessary. A community process for deletion is absolutely necessary.
This seems to carry the implicit assumption that the current mechanism is the only one imaginable. If so, we're fucked.
Kill it for a month. That month should get people REALLY FOCUSED on a deletion mechanism that's less toxic than the present one.
- d.
On 9/12/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Kill it for a month. That month should get people REALLY FOCUSED on a deletion mechanism that's less toxic than the present one.
Wow, a little extremist now? Calm down man. The vfd backlog is bad enough already.
No, afd just needs to *die*. I still don't see why anyone thought renaming it would fix the problems.
But die to be replaced with what?
Deletion is absolutely necessary. A community process for deletion is absolutely necessary.
By autonomous(sp?) decision making. Currently, VfD is where everyone is supposed to have a say (aka vote) and the future of many articles is decided by something similar to a centralized government. It is the reason why there are so many policies and rules related to deletion. Hundreds of people have a say and can vote "keep" or "delete" on obscure articles they have neither any clue nor interest in. It is IMHO completely opposite to the wiki way. And it doesn't scale very well either. My replacement system would work like this:
1. A person finds an article. 2. That person doesn't think the article belongs in Wikipedia. 3. That person writes on that pages talk page: "I think this page should be deleted for this and that reason." 4. That person waits (this step is essential). 5. Maybe some discussions appear on the talk page. The people there form a consensus on what to do with the article. 5.5 If noone responds to the person at all after a certain amout of time (see step 4), it is a safe bet noone cares and the article can safely be deleted. 6. If necessary, someone notifies an admin which deletes the article.
This system has some advantages over the current:
1. It ensures that you have actually seen the article before you add your opinion about it. 2. The discussion is kept close to where the content of the article is. That means it is more natural to find "alternative" solutions instead of VfD which often degenerates into Keep vs. Delete. 3. It scales beautifully. 4. People who aren't insterested in the article are "kept out." Because if they haven't seen the article they don't know about the delete-discussion about it. 5. Similarily, people who aren't interested in the article doesn't have to deal with it. They can still add their opinions about the future of other articles without ever seeing the articles they aren't interested in.