"Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com schrieb:
You're making the argument that since someday, some lonely person might have enough freetime to waste typing in thousands and thousands of entries in the manner of a robot, we have to delete any and every article that's too trivial today.
I think that are some missing steps in that deduction, so that the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
I'll add the missing steps:
Either these articles are having a positive effect on Wikipedia, and then we should allow this hypothetical person or a bot, not ban them. Or these articles are having a negative effect on Wikipedia, and then it's good thing to delete them.
Andre Engels
Andre Engels wrote:
You're making the argument that since someday, some lonely person might have enough freetime to waste typing in thousands and thousands of entries in the manner of a robot, we have to delete any and every article that's too trivial today.
I think that are some missing steps in that deduction, so that the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
I'll add the missing steps:
Either these articles are having a positive effect on Wikipedia, and then we should allow this hypothetical person or a bot, not ban them. Or these articles are having a negative effect on Wikipedia, and then it's good thing to delete them.
Notice that you still haven't gotten to the conclusion.
Let me make my point more clear: arguments about what we ought to if someone really starts to abuse wikipedia with thousands and thousands of trivial articles do not prove that we ought to delete any and every article that's too trivial today.
Put another way: if someone wants to write an article about their high school, we should relax and accomodate them, even if we wish they wouldn't do it. And that's true *even if* we should react differently if someone comes in and starts mass-adding articles on every high school in the world.
Let me make this more concrete. Let's say I start writing an article about my high school, Randolph School, of Huntsville, Alabama. I could write a decent 2 page article about it, citing information that can easily be verified by anyone who visits their website.
Then I think people should relax and accomodate me. It isn't hurting anything. It'd be a good article, I'm a good contributor, and so cutting me some slack is a very reasonable thing to do.
That's true *even if* we'd react differently to a ton of one-liners mass-imported saying nothing more than "Randolph School is a private school in Huntsville, Alabama, US" and "Indian Springs is a private school in Birmingham, Alabama, US" and on and on and on, ad nauseum.
The argument "what if someone did this particular thing 100,000 times" is not a valid argument against letting them do it a few times.
--Jimbo
From: Jimmy Wales
<snip>
The argument "what if someone did this particular thing 100,000 times" is not a valid argument against letting them do it a few times.
Well said. Okay, I'll fill in the missing steps of the argument.
Premises: 1. If someone imports thousands of articles on subjects of limited interest, the existence of those articles will degrade the quality of Wikipedia more than it will improve it. 2. We want to prevent actions which degrade the quality of Wikipedia more than they improve it. 3. If we allow individuals to each write a few articles on subjects of limited interest, over time, the cumulative result in time will be the creation of thousands of such articles. 4. The time over which articles are added has no bearing on their cumulative effect on the quality of Wikipedia. 5. There exist no differences between a mass-imported article and indiviually entered article on subjects of limited interest in terms of cumulative effect on the quality of Wikipedia; for example, the nature of the articles on subjects of limited interest (such as whether the information is drawn directly from a database or has been crafted through methods currently unavailable to mechanical processes) has no bearing. 6. The number of participants in the process of creating articles on subjects of limited interest has no bearing on the cumulative effect of such articles.
Conclusion: Therefore we want to prevent individuals from each writing a few articles on subjects of limited interest.
Corollary: Premises: 1. If there already exist articles on subjects of limited interest, but we have forbidden the creation of any more, Wikipedia de facto is biased toward the subjects which are covered. 2. Wikipedia should avoid bias. Conclusion: Therefore we should delete all current articles on subjects of limited interest.
I don't buy premises 4-6.
From: Andre Engels
"Jimmy Wales" jwales@bomis.com schrieb:
You're making the argument that since someday, some lonely person might have enough freetime to waste typing in thousands and
thousands
of entries in the manner of a robot, we have to delete any and every article that's too trivial today.
I think that are some missing steps in that deduction, so that the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
I'll add the missing steps:
Either these articles are having a positive effect on Wikipedia, and
then
we should allow this hypothetical person or a bot, not ban them. Or
these
articles are having a negative effect on Wikipedia, and then it's good thing to delete them.
I believe you mean to use the conditional tense ("Either these articles would have a positive effect..."), not the present tense.
Those steps still do not connect the hypothetical thousands of mass-imported entries to actual "trivial" entries.