Ok, Yes, Toby's suggestion that an article with a good title but no content should be deleted is good policy.
Fred Bauder
Fred Bauder wrote:
Ok, Yes, Toby's suggestion that an article with a good title but no content should be deleted is good policy.
It seems like silly makework to me.
The article will be recreated again anytime anyone clicks on one of the links leading to it.
If it is a good title then it is an invitation for anyone who encounters it to add to it.
A poor title seems of no loss. However, unless it is replaced with a good title which it previous links are edited to point at, it seems likely that it will reoccur quickly.
Somebody had to code the initial link to the poor title to create the article in the first place. It seems to me that the only solid way to eliminate poor titles is track the links and recode them to a better title. If the new title is a new article then unless someone undertakes a research project it will likely be fairly empty or stubby for a while.
I think that having the Wikipedia Guard or Militia routinely deleting empty good titled articles may only slow down the growth in bread and depth of the Wikipedia. Some people may like organizing the link structures and establishing good initial titles and interconnections. Why should this contribution be routinely deleted? How much subsequent work is then lost from contributors who while browsing may choose to add an easy paragraph but who will not undertake an entire stub and the effort required to link it appropriately into an entire encyclopedia?
Some areas of the Wikipedia already feel pretty circular and concise. They have no sloppy or poor titles hanging out for random fortuitous contributions from readers. They have a concise complete feel to them that screams static encyclopedic overview with no place for further detail.
To summarize, I am unconvinced that routine pruning of good article titles is useful to attaining our goals of depth, breadth, and reliability. Rather, I think it may actually be harmful.
regards, Mike Irwin
P.S. It might be an interesting experiment to build a detailed maze of good article titles and stubs in some underdeveloped subject area of the Wikipedia and toy around with some twikification techniques. If a couple of regulars cooperated in an area of common interest it might convince newcomers that Wikipedia is truly alive with sufficient utilization to keep its content dynamic and growing. As it is I think the first multi Wikipedian contact in near realtime of many newcomers may often be in a negative atmosphere of panic and anger as the mailing list is attracted to some poor content locus for deletion sprees.
P.S.2 To address the issue of the most wanted list. Perhaps its code could be enhanced to provide a weighted list or set of lists. Thus two paragraph stubs referenced 26 times which have little or no outbound links would get some attention from people who prefer checking most wanted lists rather than subject browsing or random inspection for twikification efforts. Perhaps we could identify some syntax factors that make a good Wikipedia article such as (perhaps): length, median word size, median sentence length, average paragraph length, number of commas, number of inbound links, number of out bound links, editor rating, reader rating, etc. An advantage of this approach is that eventually various automated quality scanning tools could help people target material needing their particular gifts or interests.
mirwin wrote:
Fredbauder wrote:
Ok, Yes, Toby's suggestion that an article with a good title but no content should be deleted is good policy.
It seems like silly makework to me. The article will be recreated again anytime anyone clicks on one of the links leading to it.
These links will be "?" (or highlighted) if the page is deleted, so people following them should be intending to write articles. If they do write content, then that's great! I don't mind contentless pages being recreated as contentful articles.
If it is a good title then it is an invitation for anyone who encounters it to add to it.
For somebody interested in writeing content (which is what we want), I think that a link of "?" is more inviting than a non"?" link. If I know about a subject, then I'll follow "?" links but not non"?" ones. If the non"?" link is to a contentless page, then this means that I won't be writing articles that I otherwise would write!
A poor title seems of no loss. However, unless it is replaced with a good title which it previous links are edited to point at, it seems likely that it will reoccur quickly. Somebody had to code the initial link to the poor title to create the article in the first place. It seems to me that the only solid way to eliminate poor titles is track the links and recode them to a better title. If the new title is a new article then unless someone undertakes a research project it will likely be fairly empty or stubby for a while.
If I understand you correctly, than I feel similarly. I'm much less concerned about contentless pages with poor titles that we'll never want in an encyclopaedia. The way to fix ''these'' is to fix the links to them. Only once that is done will deleting the page do much good. So it is the good titles that we disagree on, not the bad ones.
I think that having the Wikipedia Guard or Militia routinely deleting empty good titled articles may only slow down the growth in breadth and depth of the Wikipedia. Some people may like organizing the link structures and establishing good initial titles and interconnections. Why should this contribution be routinely deleted? How much subsequent work is then lost from contributors who while browsing may choose to add an easy paragraph but who will not undertake an entire stub and the effort required to link it appropriately into an entire encyclopedia?
I really have no idea how you think that this will work. Do you have examples on Wikipedia? (If I need to look in page histories to see how this worked in the past, then that's fine too.)
Some areas of the Wikipedia already feel pretty circular and concise. They have no sloppy or poor titles hanging out for random fortuitous contributions from readers. They have a concise complete feel to them that screams static encyclopedic overview with no place for further detail.
But I think that links to articles with no content ''adds'' to this problem. When the link doesn't have "?", things look even more complete. But they are not complete, and "?"s will make things look properly incomplete! However, I do agree with you that we have this problem in some places. People don't follow [[Wikipedia:Always leave something undone]] enough (a sin that I've been guilty of too often in the past).
To summarize, I am unconvinced that routine pruning of good article titles is useful to attaining our goals of depth, breadth, and reliability. Rather, I think it may actually be harmful.
P.S. It might be an interesting experiment to build a detailed maze of good article titles and stubs in some underdeveloped subject area of the Wikipedia and toy around with some twikification techniques.
If they're ''good'' stubs, then I'd support this experiment. (The page that I mentioned before is [[Wikipedia:The perfect stub article]], and point #5 is the one that I hope people consider particularly.)
If a couple of regulars cooperated in an area of common interest it might convince newcomers that Wikipedia is truly alive with sufficient utilization to keep its content dynamic and growing. As it is I think the first multi Wikipedian contact in near realtime of many newcomers may often be in a negative atmosphere of panic and anger as the mailing list is attracted to some poor content locus for deletion sprees.
I hope that we never go on deletion sprees. If we delete stubs for being too imperfect, then every one should go to [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion]] first. I primarily just don't want things to be delisted from that page without discussion; I'm not saying that they should all just be deleted!
P.S.2 To address the issue of the most wanted list. Perhaps its code could be enhanced to provide a weighted list or set of lists. Thus two paragraph stubs referenced 26 times which have little or no outbound links would get some attention from people who prefer checking most wanted lists rather than subject browsing or random inspection for twikification efforts. Perhaps we could identify some syntax factors that make a good Wikipedia article such as (perhaps): length, median word size, median sentence length, average paragraph length, number of commas, number of inbound links, number of out bound links, editor rating, reader rating, etc. An advantage of this approach is that eventually various automated quality scanning tools could help people target material needing their particular gifts or interests.
Do you know how to write the software for this? I think that we need to deal with how [[Special:Mostwanted]] works now, or can be made to work easily. I'm not against your idea; it's a longer term project, that's all.
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
mirwin wrote:
Fredbauder wrote:
Ok, Yes, Toby's suggestion that an article with a good title but no content should be deleted is good policy.
It seems like silly makework to me. The article will be recreated again anytime anyone clicks on one of the links leading to it.
These links will be "?" (or highlighted) if the page is deleted, so people following them should be intending to write articles. If they do write content, then that's great! I don't mind contentless pages being recreated as contentful articles.
If it is a good title then it is an invitation for anyone who encounters it to add to it.
For somebody interested in writeing content (which is what we want), I think that a link of "?" is more inviting than a non"?" link. If I know about a subject, then I'll follow "?" links but not non"?" ones. If the non"?" link is to a contentless page, then this means that I won't be writing articles that I otherwise would write!
Ok. I can see this might be a problem for writers oriented towards writing complete new stubs or articles. Perhaps a list article page inversely sorted on article length such that the shortest show up first and the longest last would help address this. This may be a current capability on the stub page, I have not been there for a while.
I think we also want tweaking experts and readers who will occasionally do some research and drop a sentence, paragraph, definition, or lengthy rambling explanation that can be tweaked into quality content. A thousand readers occasionally tweaking equals how many dedicated Wikipedians? A lot of highly educated people are also fairly busy. While they may not choose to be regular contributors, the value of their tweaks should add up or something is seriously wrong with our project model.
<snip agreement on poor titles>
I think that having the Wikipedia Guard or Militia routinely deleting empty good titled articles may only slow down the growth in breadth and depth of the Wikipedia. Some people may like organizing the link structures and establishing good initial titles and interconnections. Why should this contribution be routinely deleted? How much subsequent work is then lost from contributors who while browsing may choose to add an easy paragraph but who will not undertake an entire stub and the effort required to link it appropriately into an entire encyclopedia?
I really have no idea how you think that this will work. Do you have examples on Wikipedia? (If I need to look in page histories to see how this worked in the past, then that's fine too.)
Some use the term twikification or wikification when they do a concise edit. Tracing these from recent changes may illustrate the concept if you find a stub that has just become active or controversial.
Perhaps the index pages in the tree branch {main page}, {technology},{space technology},{propulsion} would be illustrative. I added space technology and alphabetized technology, IIRC approximately 6 months ago when I first arrived. They have been slowly undergoing tweaks since then but are still pretty poor stubs. They do however provide a substrate for tweaks to settle upon.
Personally, I would hope that one day these are solid multi page essays that are standalone informative overviews with links and indexes to sub branches and mazes of detailed articles at appropriate detail which are useful to practicing professionals, casual browsers, and grade school students alike. Extreme success would be when the material is organized such that a glossary of specialized jargon is easily available; summaries at various levels of detail make sense to space enthusiasts, newcomers, and other field specialists; and detailed state of the art information is also accessible on demand without impacting the casual reader or beginner.
I think it will be failure if the articles remain so general and static that specialists/enthusiasts set up their own specialized Wikipedia (or equivalent) rather than fill in this one with deep dense branches of relevant detail organized such that all users can find an appropriate level of detail when they need or want it.
I suspect (but certainly cannot prove) that if Wikipedia is: not a dictionary, not a tutorial, not a place for discussion of advanced material, not a place for video addicts, not a place for resolution of controversy and neutral presentation of all views, not an etc. etc. then it will have a hard time becoming and remaining an in depth, broad, reliable Wikipedia.
Some areas of the Wikipedia already feel pretty circular and concise. They have no sloppy or poor titles hanging out for random fortuitous contributions from readers. They have a concise complete feel to them that screams static encyclopedic overview with no place for further detail.
But I think that links to articles with no content ''adds'' to this problem. When the link doesn't have "?", things look even more complete. But they are not complete, and "?"s will make things look properly incomplete! However, I do agree with you that we have this problem in some places. People don't follow [[Wikipedia:Always leave something undone]] enough (a sin that I've been guilty of too often in the past).
Perhaps as upper levels of summary information get fairly complete the problem will resolve itself a bit. The incomplete or poor articles should start concentrating at the leaf nodes farthest from the main page entry point since they get the least traffic. Obviously I am making a few assumptions:
1. Most readers start at the main page and work towards the level of detail they desire. The search function may break this assumption, particularly with younger readers trained in computer use rather than use of indexes or tables of content.
2. Most readers are tweaking at least occasionally as they work through the material.
3. Wikipedia is regularly used by a large diverse group of knowledgeable readers.
<snip wild ideas>
Do you know how to write the software for this?
Very vaguely. Certainly not in PHP and mySQL at the moment. Most of my education and professional experience has emphasized top down design methods not well suited to prevalent open/free source methodologies. I am way too lazy by both training and inclination to design/code a feature or patch (after learning enough PHP, SQL, etc. and setting up a development/test system) just to see if it gets thrown away or integrated.
So far I have been pretty lazy about writing entire articles or stubs as well. Hence my interest in twikification.
Twikification may be critical to gradual engagement of some top engineering talent in some projects in which I have some interest. Few top notch engineers can resist quickly annotating a design with random stray thoughts to show how smart and qualified they are but few will do a complete design without professional compensation. Most will back up their opinions with some calculations if constructively engaged in conversation about the design detail of interest. Accrued twikification will certainly not complete space technology projects by itself. Might bring development costs down quite a bit if implemented well in open/free technology efforts. Might make some types of projects feasible for small companies who cannot afford to have thousands of specialized engineers on paid standby for consultation about esoteric details.
Usenet is a poor medium for this type of conversation. The knowledge and effort does not accrue or coalesce into anything useful beyond self study question and answer reading material.
I think that we need to deal with how [[Special:Mostwanted]] works now, or can be made to work easily.
I agree but I think we should not negatively impact some contribution approaches for the benefit of others.
I'm not against your idea; it's a longer term project, that's all.
Understood. Personally, I think SVG integration or some other graphics standard that is wikifiable should be a much higher priority than the wild ideas I proposed.
regards, Mike Irwin
Michael R. Irwin wrote:
Ok. I can see this might be a problem for writers oriented towards writing complete new stubs or articles. Perhaps a list article page inversely sorted on article length such that the shortest show up first and the longest last would help address this. This may be a current capability on the stub page, I have not been there for a while.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special%3AShortpages ?
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Mirwin wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
Mirwin wrote:
If it is a good title then it is an invitation for anyone who encounters it to add to it.
For somebody interested in writing content (which is what we want), I think that a link of "?" is more inviting than a non"?" link. If I know about a subject, then I'll follow "?" links but not non"?" ones. If the non"?" link is to a contentless page, then this means that I won't be writing articles that I otherwise would write!
Ok. I can see this might be a problem for writers oriented towards writing complete new stubs or articles. Perhaps a list article page inversely sorted on article length such that the shortest show up first and the longest last would help address this. This may be a current capability on the stub page, I have not been there for a while.
It's been a while since I've been on [[Special:Shortpages]]; I should go back. Cleaning this out is part of the Wikipedians' job. But in the meantime, active links that should be inactive "?"s do harm, and I'm interested here in preventing further activation of these links.
Indeed, I don't intend now to argue for deletion of substandard stubs. I brought up the idea, and others with much stronger feelings than mine have taken up that cause. I just want to prevent their creation.
I think we also want tweaking experts and readers who will occasionally do some research and drop a sentence, paragraph, definition, or lengthy rambling explanation that can be tweaked into quality content. A thousand readers occasionally tweaking equals how many dedicated Wikipedians? A lot of highly educated people are also fairly busy. While they may not choose to be regular contributors, the value of their tweaks should add up or something is seriously wrong with our project model.
I think that I understand what you mean by "twikification", as a model for building Wikipedia. Generally, I agree. But I think that the creation of a new page is unusual, because of how it impacts the presentation of pages that link to it. (Change this impact, for example with a link coded to the page's size, as another poster has suggested, and I may change my opinion accordingly.)
I strongly believe that new pages should never be tossed off lightly. They shouldn't be created for the sake of writing 200 stubs in a weekend, and a new page of nonsense or emptiness or copyright violation should be deleted in preference to replacement with a lightly done stub. OTOH, a stub with thought put into it is a very different matter. I'm not against stubs, and I'm not against twikification; I'm only against the combination of the two.
I think that having the Wikipedia Guard or Militia routinely deleting empty good titled articles may only slow down the growth in breadth and depth of the Wikipedia. Some people may like organizing the link structures and establishing good initial titles and interconnections. Why should this contribution be routinely deleted? How much subsequent work is then lost from contributors who while browsing may choose to add an easy paragraph but who will not undertake an entire stub and the effort required to link it appropriately into an entire encyclopedia?
I really have no idea how you think that this will work. Do you have examples on Wikipedia? (If I need to look in page histories to see how this worked in the past, then that's fine too.)
Some use the term twikification or wikification when they do a concise edit. Tracing these from recent changes may illustrate the concept if you find a stub that has just become active or controversial.
I can't find "twikification" on [[Special:Recentchanges]] now, but I'll look again later.
Perhaps the index pages in the tree branch {main page}, {technology},{space technology},{propulsion} would be illustrative. I added space technology and alphabetized technology, IIRC approximately 6 months ago when I first arrived. They have been slowly undergoing tweaks since then but are still pretty poor stubs. They do however provide a substrate for tweaks to settle upon.
I don't think that any of these pages is a bad stub, and I can't find any bad stubs in their histories. I definitely think that creating all of these links in lists in pages of this nature is a good idea. These are initially "?" links, which is great, and spurs people to write new articles about technology etc.
I don't want people to follow "?" links and write bad stubs; I don't want newbies who follow "?" links and write nothing, nonsense, or copyright violations to have their material replaced with bad stubs. I ''do'' want people to follow "?" links and write good stubs.
I saw one example, [[Technology]] -> [[Telemetry]], where a newbie experimenter made a blank page and somebody replaced it with a good stub (and that's an overly harsh term). Perhaps this person (well, let's not be coy, it was you) did this to keep the article from being deleted. Fine! Just don't put in a ''bad'' stub for that reason!
I suspect (but certainly cannot prove) that if Wikipedia is: not a dictionary, not a tutorial, not a place for discussion of advanced material, not a place for video addicts, not a place for resolution of controversy and neutral presentation of all views, not an etc. etc. then it will have a hard time becoming and remaining an in depth, broad, reliable Wikipedia.
All of these are supposed to be contrasted to that Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. It is not a dictionary, but it must contain definitions, when these serve the purpose of clarifying an encyclopaedia article. It's not a place to resolve controversy, but controversy must be resolved when this is necessary to writing an NPOV encyclopaedia article.
I think that we're essentially in agreement here, because even "A large city in southern [[Arizona]]." is, in your opinion, the beginning of a process that will result in an encyclopaedia article. I oppose it because my opinion disagrees, since I think that the loss of the "?" will inhibit article creation. We may disagree on the best way to build an encyclopaedia, but we agree, I think, that Wikipedia ''is'' an encyclopaedia.
But I think that links to articles with no content ''adds'' to this problem. When the link doesn't have "?", things look even more complete. But they are not complete, and "?"s will make things look properly incomplete!
To see what I'm getting at, consider Kajikit's recent post, showing the result of 20 results from [[Special:Randompage]]. I hope that you agreed that the best result was, first an article with a lot of material that could still be improved, and next an article with a lot of active links and a few "?" links as well. These both strike a good balance between presenting information to the reader and enticing the potential writer to join us in building Wikipedia. I don't want people to write stubs for the "?" links just to make them active. I do want people thinking <Hey, I could write a paragraph on that!> and writing a full paragraph. A paragraph is still a stub, but a full paragraph would have to be pretty badly written before I thought that it was a ''bad'' stub.
Once that solid foundation is set, anything from major overhauls to twikification can improve the new article (which ''is'' an article), and if we can get a few new "?" links in the new article, then the whole project is a resounding success. "A large city in southern [[Arizona]]." falls short of that.
Mike, you've never done anything that I disagreed with (at any rate not that I noticed was done by you). I saw some "stub"s that you created in the [[Technology]] area, and I thought that they were all clearly improvements. So I don't think that I want you to change your practices.
What I want out of this discussion is:
1 It becomes clear that blank pages and nonsensical pages are candidate for summary deletion by anyone with that power, so long as they have no history (this clause is important).
2 Items voted for deletion won't be removed from the list just because they could be made into encyclopaedia articles; instead, they will either be made into articles first or else an argument will be made on [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion]].
3 Point 6 of [[Wikipedia:Policy on permanent deletion of pages]] will be clarified to more clearly state that it (unlike points 2 through 5 and 7) doesn't ''forbid'' deletion, but instead ''authorises'' it (subject to the other rules). Some people regard this as a change in policy, but I think that it clearly already says this; it just needs to be made ''more'' clear.
4 As a result of the previous item (item 3), nobody will be able to say that you can't delete a page just because it could be made into an encyclopaedia article; instead, they'll have to follow item 2 to save it.
I don't think that any of the above entails a change in policy, only a clarification.
And lest there be any confusion, here is something that I ''don't'' want to result from this discussion:
0 It becomes OK to delete any page just because it isn't now an article.
OTC, there are many pages whose deletion is neither authorised by point 6 nor forbidden by points 2 through 5 and 7, and these must be discussed. In fact, many of those authorised by point 6 should also be discussed, lest there be any doubt that point 6 actually applies.
Although I've been playing the other side lately, my natural sympathies are still "If in doubt, don't delete.".
-- Toby
--- "Michael R. Irwin" mri_icboise@surfbest.net wrote:
I think that having the Wikipedia Guard or Militia routinely deleting empty good titled articles may only slow down the growth in bread and depth of the Wikipedia. Some people may like organizing the link structures and establishing good initial titles and interconnections. Why should this contribution be routinely deleted? How much subsequent work is then lost from contributors who while browsing may choose to add an easy paragraph but who will not undertake an entire stub and the effort required to link it appropriately into an entire encyclopedia?
It is interesting that the debate about article deletion turns on the contributing habits of other people, not ourselves. Do any of us go around creating poor stubs, content-free articles, or other stuff that is a candidate for deletion? It seems not, i.e. it seems that nobody on the mailing list is suggesting deleting any article created by anyone else on the mailing list. Apparently, no matter how varied in substance and style our contributions may be, we all recognize that we are all doing useful work.
Therefore article deletion seems to be less a matter of encyclopdia building, and more a matter of public relations. How does the established community interact with newbies? Do we risk discouraging contributions, even if they are contributions such as we ourselves would not make? When old hands work in a manner congenial to themselves, does it make a bad impression on newcomers?
I am probably the newbiest (or should that be most newbiest?) on the list right now. I still have to fight the temptation to ask for permission to make changes rather than simply making them. And I still remember fairly clearly my pre-Wikipedia notion of how collaboration might or might not work. My opinion is only mine, but I present it for what it is worth.
Far and away the most important impression for new contributors is whether or not they are part of a vibrant, ongoing interaction. I still remember the huge rush it was for me to write my first short article, and discover a few hours later that someone had corrected my spelling and added a link. From that instant I was sold on the concept, and began preaching to everyone who would listen that Wikipedia was the Next Big Thing (TM).
By the same token, the worst possible impression newbies can get is that nobody cares. I am still smarting from having a change of mine reversed with no more than a terse comment and no effort at dialogue. And I remember the disappointment of waiting for days and days to see what would be done with another contribution of mine, only to slowly conclude that nobody was going to work on it with me. Each case was a different side of being ignored. (Of course, by now I realize the efficiencies of discussing by editing rather than talking about editing, and realize too that even the most obscure article comes around for editing eventually, but I didn't have that perspective at first.)
With this in mind, I think that the timing of a delete is critical. If someone created an empty article a month ago and nothing has happened to it since, we need have no fear of deleting it. Whoever made it is long gone. They don't care about it, or they wouldn't have left it. They won't feel that we are undoing their hard work; they aren't coming back every week to admire their miniscule efforts.
On the other extreme, if a useless article has been created by a newbie in the last twenty-four hours, they would likely be extremely gratified at any attempt at communication, if only appending to their article "Would you like to expand this a little? See link-to-writing-a-good-stub."
The impression we make on new contributors is more important than the impression we make on passive viewers, but the latter is worth a thought too, since today's passive viewer may become tomorrow's participant. I know from my father's reaction to Wikipedia (i.e. complete dismissal) how damaging it is to have poor articles, and how much preferable it would be to have nothing at all rather than garbage or a pathetic stub. On the other hand, now that I am a contributor myself, I can see how counterproductive it would be to try to remove everything that "lowers the average".
The best solution I can think of is to make it more obvious that poor articles are obviously under construction. For example, the article on chess-playing computers for many moons had a placeholder in it saying "fill in early history" or something like that. Admittedly, when I saw that placeholder for the twentieth time it started to grate on me, but when I saw it for the first time it helped clarify that the article was not a bad article, but rather an article that needed fleshing out. Given the current state of much of our product, it is well to focus outsiders on the process.
My $0.02. -Karl
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
At 06:56 PM 8/25/02 -0700, Karl wrote:
--- "Michael R. Irwin" mri_icboise@surfbest.net wrote:
I think that having the Wikipedia Guard or Militia routinely deleting empty good titled articles may only slow down the growth in bread and depth of the Wikipedia. Some people may like organizing the link structures and establishing good initial titles and interconnections. Why should this contribution be routinely deleted? How much subsequent work is then lost from contributors who while browsing may choose to add an easy paragraph but who will not undertake an entire stub and the effort required to link it appropriately into an entire encyclopedia?
It is interesting that the debate about article deletion turns on the contributing habits of other people, not ourselves. Do any of us go around creating poor stubs, content-free articles, or other stuff that is a candidate for deletion? It seems not, i.e. it seems that nobody on the mailing list is suggesting deleting any article created by anyone else on the mailing list. Apparently, no matter how varied in substance and style our contributions may be, we all recognize that we are all doing useful work.
Actually, I'd favor deleting some of Fredbauder's stubs, since I think entries like "a large city in southern Arizona" as the entire article reduce the chance of anyone seeing the gap and writing a good article on the subject.
<snip some good discussion of timing and the effect on new contributors of having articles edited rather than removed>
At 10:08 PM 8/25/02 -0400, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
Actually, I'd favor deleting some of Fredbauder's stubs, since I think entries like "a large city in southern Arizona" as the entire article reduce the chance of anyone seeing the gap and writing a good article on the subject.
So no misunderstanding at all. But the question is not whether Tucson, Arizona should be removed, but what serves to eventually produce a nice article. I think a placeholder with a web link to information that can be used to develop an article serves well enough. Vicki seems to think having nothing would work better. I don't think there is an question eventually we would like an article on Tucson. I wrote the stub after I found links to [[Tucson]], [[Tucson,Arizona]], and [[Tucson, Arizona]].
My thought is that a short stub does no harm, expecially with a link to local attractions. And looking at the article, it seems there is some work, but still not a substantial article; in fact now it would seem hard to justify deleting it. Looking at history User O seems to have picked it up off recent changes and put in a few facts. I would say that the ball is rolling, if slowly.
Granted I should take a look at the article "How to write a good stub," but it seemed to me at the time that a simple placeholder with a link to a resource that could be used to develop the article served well enough.
Fred Bauder
Fred Bauder wrote on [[Tucson, Arizona]] in part:
My thought is that a short stub does no harm, expecially with a link to local attractions. And looking at the article, it seems there is some work, but still not a substantial article; in fact now it would seem hard to justify deleting it. Looking at history User O seems to have picked it up off recent changes and put in a few facts. I would say that the ball is rolling, if slowly.
[[User:0]] appears because of a bug in the conversion to Phase III; it'd be interesting to figure out who that ''really'' was (you used to be able to look this up at old.wikipedia.com) and find out if the existence of the stub helped or hindered their work. It is after the edits attributed to 0 that I think that the article passes the barrier between useless and worthwhile.
Granted I should take a look at the article "How to write a good stub," but it seemed to me at the time that a simple placeholder with a link to a resource that could be used to develop the article served well enough.
FYI, it's [[Wikipedia:The perfect stub article]], originally (it seems) an essay by Larry Sanger.
-- Toby
--- Toby Bartels toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
FYI, it's [[Wikipedia:The perfect stub article]], originally (it seems) an essay by Larry Sanger.
OK, maybe I am getting to be less newbie-ish, because I just completely thrashed [[Wikipedia:The perfect stub article]], and I didn't ask anyone's permission first! I hope what I did is an improvement that y'all can work forward from, rather than "reverting vandalism" :-)
Peace, -Karl
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
Fred Bauder wrote:
At 10:08 PM 8/25/02 -0400, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
Actually, I'd favor deleting some of Fredbauder's stubs, since I think entries like "a large city in southern Arizona" as the entire article reduce the chance of anyone seeing the gap and writing a good article on the subject.
My thought is that a short stub does no harm, expecially with a link to local attractions. And looking at the article, it seems there is some work, but still not a substantial article; in fact now it would seem hard to justify deleting it. Looking at history User O seems to have picked it up off recent changes and put in a few facts. I would say that the ball is rolling, if slowly.
My compliments to User 0 who did his work on June 16. Now only Flagstaff is simply a city in northern Arizona and nothing more. The fact that I'm enterring Flagstaff into the debate may very well lead to something being written about it, but that's only one article. How many more useless stubs are there which appear in links as written? They just promote a false sense of confidence that they do have content. I agree with Vicki on this. No article is often better than a useless article.
Eclecticology
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ray Saintonge" saintonge@telus.net
My compliments to User 0 who did his work on June 16. Now only Flagstaff is simply a city in northern Arizona and nothing more. The fact that I'm enterring Flagstaff into the debate may very well lead to something being written about it, but that's only one article. How many more useless stubs are there which appear in links as written? They just promote a false sense of confidence that they do have content. I agree with Vicki on this. No article is often better than a useless article.
I agree to the point where I dissuade people from creating stubs. I disagree when it comes to the question of deleting stubs. I fall firmly on the "when in doubt, don't delete". And the doubt here shouldn't be an individual's doubt, but on the doubt of everyone. And in the case of stubs, there will always be doubt, because the determination of "useless" is not objective.
--- Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
At 10:08 PM 8/25/02 -0400, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
Actually, I'd favor deleting some of Fredbauder's
stubs, since I
think entries like "a large city in southern
Arizona" as the entire article
reduce the chance of anyone seeing the gap and
writing a good article
on the subject.
So no misunderstanding at all.
Vicki is voicing an opinion that is not directly related to Toby's proposed change to the deletion policy.
Stephen G.
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
Karl Juhnke wrote:
--- "Michael R. Irwin" mri_icboise@surfbest.net wrote:
I think that having the Wikipedia Guard or Militia routinely deleting empty good titled articles may only slow down the growth in bread and depth of the Wikipedia. Some people may like organizing the link structures and establishing good initial titles and interconnections. Why should this contribution be routinely deleted? How much subsequent work is then lost from contributors who while browsing may choose to add an easy paragraph but who will not undertake an entire stub and the effort required to link it appropriately into an entire encyclopedia?
It is not enough to say that "sombody" should fix the stub. Every Wikipediholic has pet subject areas that already require more of his time than he has. We don't mind going into an article to make minor spelling corrections, but there's always the risk that wandering away from that task will land us in a new edit war. If your not going to be that "somebody" there's no need to complain when a useless stub is deleted.
It is interesting that the debate about article deletion turns on the contributing habits of other people, not ourselves.
Saying that "somebody" should ... is certainly about other people's habits.
Therefore article deletion seems to be less a matter of encyclopdia building, and more a matter of public relations. How does the established community interact with newbies?
The difficulty about newbie work is that it's so variable. Nevertheless the responsible ones are soon recognized.
Far and away the most important impression for new contributors is whether or not they are part of a vibrant, ongoing interaction. I still remember the huge rush it was for me to write my first short article, and discover a few hours later that someone had corrected my spelling and added a link. From that instant I was sold on the concept, and began preaching to everyone who would listen that Wikipedia was the Next Big Thing (TM).
That they changed the spelling was proof that somebody had read what you had written.
By the same token, the worst possible impression newbies can get is that nobody cares. I am still smarting from having a change of mine reversed with no more than a terse comment and no effort at dialogue. And I remember the disappointment of waiting for days and days to see what would be done with another contribution of mine, only to slowly conclude that nobody was going to work on it with me. Each case was a different side of being ignored. (Of course, by now I realize the efficiencies of discussing by editing rather than talking about editing, and realize too that even the most obscure article comes around for editing eventually, but I didn't have that perspective at first.)
With this in mind, I think that the timing of a delete is critical. If someone created an empty article a month ago and nothing has happened to it since, we need have no fear of deleting it. Whoever made it is long gone. They don't care about it, or they wouldn't have left it. They won't feel that we are undoing their hard work; they aren't coming back every week to admire their miniscule efforts.
On the other extreme, if a useless article has been created by a newbie in the last twenty-four hours, they would likely be extremely gratified at any attempt at communication, if only appending to their article "Would you like to expand this a little? See link-to-writing-a-good-stub."
Good point, This doesn't argue against deleting useless articles, only against doing so hastily.
I know from my father's reaction to Wikipedia (i.e. complete dismissal) how damaging it is to have poor articles, and how much preferable it would be to have nothing at all rather than garbage or a pathetic stub. On the other hand, now that I am a contributor myself, I can see how counterproductive it would be to try to remove everything that "lowers the average".
This is very interesting. Now how do you convince your father to contribute?! Perhaps if you could show him occasional printed copies of articles in his fields of interest that require "small" improvements, and ask him for his opinion about these; You would then, dutiful son that you are, add the improvements to the Wikipedia article, print it, and ask him if it now properly reflects his views and if it properly "raises the average". Your father is likely the product of an educational philosophy that promoted the passive consumption of knowledge. What was then written in the texbooks was undisputable truth that you only questioned at your own peril. The knowledge explosion, of which the internet is a big part, has put that notion on its ear.
The best solution I can think of is to make it more obvious that poor articles are obviously under construction.
There is a distinction to be made between a poor article, where you are right, and a useless article that doesn't add to people's knowledge. It's the latter that are better deleted.
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Karl Juhnke wrote:
I know from my father's reaction to Wikipedia (i.e. complete dismissal) how damaging it is to have poor articles, and how much preferable it would be to have nothing at all rather than garbage or a pathetic stub. On the other hand, now that I am a contributor myself, I can see how counterproductive it would be to try to remove everything that "lowers the average".
This is very interesting. Now how do you convince your father to contribute?!
Believe me, I am trying to get him on board! (I will hook him before Wikipedia is mainstream, i.e. he won't be last to join.) He is a historian, and was a college professor for over thirty years before retiring this past May. He would be the perfect Wikipedia contributor, as he has both expertise and plenty of time he can choose to dispose of as he sees fit.
Your father is likely the product of an educational philosophy that promoted the passive consumption of knowledge. What was then written in the texbooks was undisputable truth that you only questioned at your own peril.
On the contrary, he is a revisionist, you might say a subversive even. He believes in Truth, but also in disputation. He's a genuine scholar.
I am getting off topic, but I will share what happened when I tried to enlist him. Because he is a Mennonite (although not specifically an expert on Mennonite history) he went quickly to the pages on Anabaptists and Mennonites. To impress upon him how easy it is for anyone to contribute, I persuaded him to fill in a hole (Leader of Amish = Jakob Amman). But that was as much as he would do.
He declined to contribute further on grounds that the articles didn't need little fixes and additions, they were fundamentally flawed needed to be rewritten from the ground up. "Anyone who traces Anabaptists to the Zwickau prophets might as well be writing in 1930, and obviously hasn't read any modern research," he said. He then took me in hand and showed me how the article on Anabaptists in our old Collier's Encyclopedia (Written in the 1960's. On paper. Positively antediluvian.) was in every way superior scholarship. His conclusion: "Editorial accretion will never make a good article."
He is wrong, of course. Eventually the Wikipedia article will be superior to the one in our ancient Colliers. He hasn't seen articles improving, so he doesn't know the mechanics. But I think in general people who don't grok Wikipedia will judge it by comparing it to more static sources of information. The more expertise they have, the higher the quality of existing information Wikipedia will need to have to excite thier interest and participation.
Someday there will be a half-dozen historians contributing to Wikipedia who are interested in exactly the same topics my father is interested in. At that point he will want to be part of the conversation. But for now he has no inclination to cast his pearls before swine. "Why would I want to collaborate with someone who can't be bothered to look up Jakob Amman's name?" he says, and I can't blame him.
Peace, -Karl
P.S. Please understand that I am not casting aspersions on Wesley for his work on Anabaptists. I couldn't do as well myself. I'm just picking on that article to make a general point that most non-Wikipedians judge us based on our current content, not our process. Relating this back to stub articles, there's no way around the fact that people unfamiliar with the process will be turned off by stubs. To repeat a point from my previous article, we have to make every effort to _immediately_ re-edit and respond to anything a newbie does in order to initiate them into the joy. There is no way to adequately explain it; a contributor has to viscerally experience what it means to be involved in collaborative editing.
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
Karl Juhnke wrote:
--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Believe me, I am trying to get him on board! (I will hook him before Wikipedia is mainstream, i.e. he won't be last to join.) He is a historian, and was a college professor for over thirty years before retiring this past May. He would be the perfect Wikipedia contributor, as he has both expertise and plenty of time he can choose to dispose of as he sees fit.
He sounds like an excellent candidate for graduation to Wikipedia!
Your father is likely the product of an educational philosophy that promoted the passive consumption of knowledge. What was then written in the texbooks was undisputable truth that you only questioned at your own peril.
On the contrary, he is a revisionist, you might say a subversive even. He believes in Truth, but also in disputation. He's a genuine scholar.
Even revisionists have standards. There's no shortage of disputation on Wikipedia. I hope that somebody like Helga doesn't scare him away; she's already frustrating some our best historians.
His conclusion: "Editorial accretion will never make a good article."
Interesting comment. All historiography is a series of accretions, because new information is regularly being discovered. The perfect article is an impossibility because it can't take into account what has not yet been discovered. That makes life very tough for the perfectionist historian.
Eventually the Wikipedia article will be superior to the one in our ancient Colliers. He hasn't seen articles improving, so he doesn't know the mechanics. But I think in general people who don't grok Wikipedia will judge it by comparing it to more static sources of information. The more expertise they have, the higher the quality of existing information Wikipedia will need to have to excite thier interest and participation.
For a university professor it must be a horrifying vision to imagine that all the really really bad term papers that he ever had to mark over the years of his career would suddenly find status on the shelves of the university library. Without the participation of knowledgeable historians that prophecy could come true.
My personal view toward Wikipedia is as a project for the democratisation of knowledge. (A subject where I could all too easily become prolix.) That process involves reconciling the knowledge held in University Protectorates with the knowledge on the street. That's not a trivial task. For example: In plant taxonomy the latest fad is cladistics where plants are organized to reflect their real evolutionary relationships. This would replace a classification system published by one Arthur Cronquist in 1981 which cladists declare obsolete. The fact is that the general public has never heard of Cronquist, and neither have the big-box bookstores that the public might visit. The Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide series may be all they have as a reference. That's on a par with your old Colliers. This is a challenging problem!
But for now he has no inclination to cast his pearls before swine. "Why would I want to collaborate with someone who can't be bothered to look up Jakob Amman's name?" he says, and I can't blame him.
Wikipedia is not even two years old. It looks much better in the light of that fact. If I were interested in that topic I would regard that as a simple non-contentious oversight, add a short sentence and move on to something else. Good luck, Ray (Eclecticology)
P.S. Please understand that I am not casting aspersions on Wesley for his work on Anabaptists.
I've been having my own difficulties with Wesley and SLRubenstein over the definition of [Biblical canon] where they want to insist that inspiration by God is part of the definition. I prefer the minimalist view that it is a simple list of the books of the Bible, and the reference to "inspiration" should come later in the article.
Relating this back to stub articles, there's no way around the fact that people unfamiliar with the process will be turned off by stubs. To repeat a point from my previous article, we have to make every effort to _immediately_ re-edit and respond to anything a newbie does in order to initiate them into the joy. There is no way to adequately explain it; a contributor has to viscerally experience what it means to be involved in collaborative editing.
To stay on topic, I agree. There are many sites on the net where the information is so scant that you wonder why Google wasted your time sending you there.
I also agree about greeting newbies where Mav has been doing a wonderful job. I suggested the idea of Wikipediac certificates on his talk page.
--- "Michael R. Irwin" mri_icboise@surfbest.net wrote:
It seems like silly makework to me.
The article will be recreated again anytime anyone clicks on one of the links leading to it.
If it is a good title then it is an invitation for anyone who encounters it to add to it.
Here's the situation. Pretend Wikipedia had not article on, say, the Protestant Reformation. Someone follows a link to the empty article, edits the page and types "sadlhfhg". Now, when someone is reading another article with a link to the Protestant Reformation, it looks like we have an article. If they don't visit the page, they won't know that there's actually no article. If, however, the Protestant Reformation page was deleted, people will see empty links and think, "Hmmm... we should really have something on that topic."
Also, having existing but empty articles breaks the functionality of pages like "Most Wanted".
Stephen G.
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
--- Stephen Gilbert canuck_in_korea2002@yahoo.com wrote:
--- "Michael R. Irwin" mri_icboise@surfbest.net wrote:
It seems like silly makework to me.
The article will be recreated again anytime anyone clicks on one of the links leading to it.
If it is a good title then it is an invitation for anyone who encounters it to add to it.
Here's the situation. Pretend Wikipedia had not article on, say, the Protestant Reformation. Someone follows a link to the empty article, edits the page and types "sadlhfhg". Now, when someone is reading another article with a link to the Protestant Reformation, it looks like we have an article. If they don't visit the page, they won't know that there's actually no article. If, however, the Protestant Reformation page was deleted, people will see empty links and think, "Hmmm... we should really have something on that topic."
Do any of you sometimes use the special print feature (printable version)? I do from time to time print some articles I want to keep, and read carefully, and confront to other articles.
When one does print an article, all the links in the text are indicated filled (they all seem to lead to an existing article, as they are colored and underlined).
Though I understand looking at an article with ? at the end of words would look pretty weird on paper, I find that confusing.
I know we are in electronic times, but jee, my office is still crowded with papers, for I used prints quite a lot (to avoid losing information, for my poor eyes sake, for online connexion availability, slow understanding, for easier working out, annotation). It doesnot kill interconnectivity process, and I believe an encyclopedia article is something that must be printable somehow.
However, I think it a poor idea to show all the links as if they were filled. First, because it is somehow "cheating" to pretend that information is available, and of course, for all the reasons many of you give against very short stubs (in particular, the fact you don't feel the urge to get up in the middle of the night to add something yourself).
Empty links and filled links should appear differently on prints.
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com
Printed copies aside, how about showing several different types of links:
To articles not addressed at all yet
To stubs (including those where only the title remains) of 100 words or less
To articles of 100 to 1000 words
To articles of 1000 words or more
Could be color-coded maybe, but that would not be lynx compliant.
Maybe a note on the main page, perhaps every page, or perhaps on stub pages, should explain that we have only just begun to address many topics and that there are withing Wikipedia many short articles that need development and how a new reader can freely jump in and help.
Fred
At 10:58 PM 8/26/02 -0700, you wrote:
However, I think it a poor idea to show all the links as if they were filled. First, because it is somehow "cheating" to pretend that information is available, and of course, for all the reasons many of you give against very short stubs (in particular, the fact you don't feel the urge to get up in the middle of the night to add something yourself).
Empty links and filled links should appear differently on prints.
ldc..
Please undelete September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack/Give Blood and September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack/World economic effects and Wail Alshehri.
I'll discuss them on Votes for deletion if people still think they should be deleted. Deletion is being overused right now; which would be fine if there was an undelete function available.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org