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

[K P]

On 1/19/07, Nick Wilkins <nlwilkins at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 1/19/07, K P <kpbotany at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 1/19/07, Ryzvel at 3mail.com <Ryzvel at 3mail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > I was intrigued last year to find that somebody had deleted one of my
> > > contributions on the grounds that the deletor [?] had never heard of
> it.
> > > Acting on this criterion, I would spend my waking hours deleting
> > Wikipedia
> > > articles. Tim . . .
> >
> >
> > Yes, that seems to hold a lot of weight in deletionist debates, someone
> > who
> > has never worked in the sciences never heard of a scientific concept and
> > doesn't understand the underlying basics, but thinks the article should
> be
> > deleted because it's on a concept they "had never heard of."
> >
> > KP
>
>
>
> Are said articles sourced?  My experience (obviously, hardly a scientific
> study here!) is that few articles with decent sources get nominated on the
> grounds of the concept never having been heard of.  Recently I came across
> a
> talk page request for external sources on an Olympics results page because
> the requester had never heard of Olympic racewalking.  Perfectly
> reasonable,
> and I wouldn't blame anyone for having their first reaction being thinking
> that the page was a hoax--the idea of walking being an Olympic competition
> made me boggle the first time I heard of it.
>
> If articles on scientific concepts aren't sourced, it can be nigh
> impossible
> for people to tell the difference between a hoax and an actual concept
> that
> they just haven't heard of before.  Obviously, talk pages or
> {{unreferenced}} tags would be my preferred first reaction in such a case,
> but seeing the number of articles in the unreferenced category from
> December
> 2005 is daunting.
>
> Of course, on the other hand, if referenced articles are getting nominated
> because people haven't heard of them, such people should be gently
> reminded
> to, you know, go read the source first.
>
> -- Jonel


If the concept is in the sciences and the person is nominating it simply
because they've never heard of it, how can they tell if the source is
worthwhile?  I didn't even know what to say to someone who nominated one
article recently, on a subject the nominator had obviously never heard
of, on the basis that the nominator questioned how sea levels could possibly
rise if there was less water held in the ice caps, or maybe he/she was
questioning the amount of the rise.  I don't think having the nominator read
the source would have helped much.  On the other hand, it appears the
article writer hadn't gotten anywhere near a source, either....

I'm finding a few problems with sources on articles.  People don't realize
you can't copy entire sentences from the article ("well, I only copied a few
sentence, and never two in a row...."), and that you can't say the article
said something it didn't.  If the article said he started studying singing
seriously at the age of 10, you can't say he started singing at 10.  Maybe
it's the Masson/New Yorker method of quoting in the latter case.

How can anyone possibly nominate an article dealing with particle physics
for deletion, thinking it is a hoax, if they know nothing about quantum
mechanics?  I personally thought quantum mechanics was a hoax until I
studied it.  I think if you know nothing about an area, you aren't qualified
to decide to use time resources of other editors by nominating an AfD
because YOU don't know anything about it.  Why not just ask someone in the
area?  Need a geology editor, go to the geology page, look a bunch of edits
and ask someone.  But don't say, "I don't know anything about the subject,
so I never heard of most of it, but really never heard of this, so I think
it should be deleted."  It's absurd and wastes time and resources.

Race walking.  Yeah, right.

KP