On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 12:24 PM Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I see no reason to shut down projects, nor to tell
participants to stop
collaborating on X in the spirit of a Wiki.
Unfortunately, in theory, projects in zombie mode should not pose a problem
on their own.
In practice, they do affect our guidance to users in other projects and
often results in poor, contradictory or confusing advice. At least in
English Wikipedia, Wikinews keeps being referred to as a legitimate place
to steer people, either out of aspirational hope or ignorance of just how
dormant Wikinews is. Just peruse the Wikinews Recent Changes log, and on
most any given day you're hard pressed to find any meaningful edits. The
bulk of the changes are automated talk page additions, spam blocking, or
maintenance edits.
On the English WP:NOT page, we are serving users poorly by promoting the
fantasy that it is a legit companion to Wikipedia when we know it is not
the case.
In the spirit of comity, we tend not to detail the hard truths about the
deficiency of projects. (Actually we don't really have good ways to put
anything in review or probationary status.) Instead, when well-meaning
editors try the softer approach of removing over-enthusiastic endorsement
of failed projects in policy pages, we see the edit warring below.
Should we be OK with directing people in good faith to Wikinews in its
known failure state?
-Andrew
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Over the years, it has been revert city regarding conflicting advice on
Wikinews in en:WP:NOTNEWS:
Wikinews is not a place to steer people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&…
Yes it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&…
No it isn't:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&…
Yes, it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&…
No it isn't:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&…
Yes it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not&…
And so on.
--
-Andrew Lih
Author of The Wikipedia Revolution
US National Archives Citizen Archivist of the Year (2016)
Knight Foundation grant recipient - Wikipedia Space (2015)
Wikimedia DC - Outreach and GLAM
Previously: professor of journalism and communications, American
University, Columbia University, USC
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Email: andrew(a)andrewlih.com
WEB:
https://muckrack.com/fuzheado
PROJECT: Wikipedia Space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:WPSPACE