Robert Brockway wrote:
On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:
While working on articles about Singaporean movies, I've encountered a similar problem: difficulty finding references due to systemic bias.
Some seem to have the impression that Singaporean = non-notable. I've seen articles on many Singaporean topics, which no Singaporean would contest the notability of, get nominated for deletion, under the claim of non-notability.
That Wikipedia suffers from systemic bias is not surprising.
I'm afraid I've seen this also. Non-US articles appear much more likely to come up for AfD.
But it's not just geographic. The Maui Cluster Scheduler actually came up for deletion with a result of "no concensus". This is a piece of software that is an integral component of high performance clusters the world over. One voter apparently wanted it deleted because it was not useful for his home PC. At the very best this is parochial.
Not geographic? This could be a recognition that Hawaii is not a state like the others. A clear argument for Hawaiian independence. :-)
I'm glad this topic has come up for discussion. IMHO the entire deletion process (including speedy deletion) needs to come up for review. It's too easy for articles to come up for AfD.
It was interesting to sit in a Greater Toronto Area Linux User Group meeting recently and hear people list many (IMHO) reasonable articles that had been deleted. This was a spontaneous discussion. I bet if so many people in Toronto are concerned about the deletion process that we aren't alone.
I agree. Unfortunately the most zealous deletionists are not the ones participating in this discussion; they're so busy dealing with backlog that they don't have time to discuss improvements to the policy. This whole topic is a recurring theme that we never seem able to escape. The process does need review from the ground up followed by bold action. A very substantial portion of proposed deletions will probably need to happen anyway; most inclusionists recognize that. The ones that are really controversial remain a minority. Giving the benefit of any doubt to support a more detailed review of the article should be the first choice. Tagging uncertain articles so that deletion proposals can be brought immediately to the attention of any relevant WikiProject or Study Group where Wikipedians interested in the subject area can review it in the light of the current state of knowledge in that field would be very helpful.
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