[WikiEN-l] editorial oversight, re: afd, fac, etc.

[James Hare]

I've suggested that each individual WikiProject establish the notability
standards, so naturally I guess they'd be involved in deletion, too. We
already have Deletion Sorting, which is a blessing.

On 1/12/07, Kirill Lokshin <kirill.lokshin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/12/07, Christopher Thieme <cdthieme at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Message: 10
> > > Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:19:31 -0500
> > > From: "James Hare" <messedrocker at gmail.com>
> > > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)
> > > To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> > > Message-ID:  <
> 43348cda0701120919k15954458g636078210a2adede at mail.gmail.com>
> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> > >
> > > I suggested something on another thread that stated that only people
> with
> > > background in a certain field should be qualified to judge notability.
> > > Chemists determine chemical notability, Finns determine notability of
> > > Finnish folk, the list goes on. Perhaps it's time to give AFD a good
> ol'
> > > reworking to separate the opinions of people who are qualified to
> speak
> > > about the subject's notability and outsider's opinions (both are
> > important,
> > > but we can't put the fingers of clueless people on the red button).
> > > Hopefully, through this, closing AFDs will be based less on vote
> counting
> > > and more on evaluating the opinions of people.
> >
> > I'd have to agree with James on this one.  This could also be a boon for
> FA
> > and GA promotions.  It would diminish the tendancy for voting at AFD,
> FAC,
> > etc. to look like a division of "i don't like it" and the "i like it"
> camps.
> >
> > Several months ago, an AFD came up for "Amafanius", an early Roman
> Epicurean
> > philosopher whose works, while unfortunately lost to the ages, were
> > discussed at length in the works of Cicero (who trashed Amafanius with
> > glee), and in Michel de Montaigne.  Because of their referencing,
> > the philosophical offerings of Amafanius can actually be
> reconstructed...but
> > only in broad strokes.  As someone who studied classics at Rutgers and
> am
> > well-versed in this area, I recognized that he was notable and should
> have a
> > place here at Wikipedia.  Thankfully, because a few others were just as
> > well-versed, we were able to save the article.
> >
> > But, unfortunately, as it typical around here,  a large number of users
> who
> > obvious appeared to be the tech-saavy, internet-raised Pokemon-crowd for
> > whom nothing exists before, say, 20 years ago, voted for "Delete".
> >
> > One of the failings, one that probably contributes to some of the
> negative
> > reputation Wikipedia has earned, is that it does not have any expert
> > oversight.  Perhaps some sort of prominent, scholarly, editorial
> advisory
> > board would be in order?  Even if loosely bureaucratic, it would add a
> > little more weight to the credibility of the encyclopedia that would be
> a
> > worthwhile step in counteracting an image diminished by our pop-culture
> > heaviness (pokemon, star trek, etc.) and "anyone can edit (read:
> > vandalise/insert false information)" repuation.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Christopher D. Thieme
> > User:ExplorerCDT
>
> I suppose now might be a decent time to trot out an old idea: what
> about giving WikiProjects a greater role in the deletion process?
> They are already (for the most part) the natural gathering places for
> people with some interest in a particular topic (and, by association,
> some degree of knowledge of it); presumably, we could therefore expect
> that the consensus of participants in a WikiProject would thus be a
> little more informed on topics within that project's scope than the
> consensus of randomly selected editors.
>
> --
> Kirill Lokshin
>
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