[WikiEN-l] Featured article - "Mom and Dad"

[Mark Gallagher]

G'day Phil,

> On Sep 24, 2008, at 1:55 PM, Oldak Quill wrote:
> > I don't think deletionists come to Wikipedia to delete. Perhaps
> they
> > have a strict idea of what should be in an encyclopedia (based on
> > print encyclopedias), and since pop culture does not fit into this
> > model, they wage war against these articles?
> I think deletionists don't come to Wikipedia at all - I've never  
> encountered a non-editor who is bothered by the strange stuff on  
> Wikipedia. To most people outside the bubble, it seems to be one of 
> 
> our most beloved features.

Deletionists are made, not born.  Well, maybe ...

I used to be very hot on the idea of deleting stuff I didn't like --- whether it was because it was insufficiently notable, or not a good enough article, or I just didn't like the colour.  I think part of it was I had this idea of Wikipedia being an attempt to reproduce a traditional encyclopaedia, except written by the masses (in the same way, it took me a fair while to get used to the reference fetish when it arrived).  If anything as time goes by, I've become *more* eventualist, *more* happy to let sub-standard articles lie and hope that they get better over time.  This was partly because I learnt more about the ideals of the project, but mostly because I became disillusioned with how poorly thought-out the rationales of deletionists tended to be, and by how little time they were willing to spend thinking about things before flipping the kill switch.

However, I *can* see how events might take one the opposite way.  When you consider that over time, Wikipedians tend to develop more pride and more feelings of ownership, and get more of a sense that they are responsible for the state of the encyclopaedia, it becomes more important to them that it be perfect *now*.  This means: no poorly-written articles (in other words: no works-in-progress).  This means: No articles on embarrassing subjects like pop culture (in other words: none of our most popular work).  

> Deletionism seems to be an internal phenomenon - a switch that gets 
> 
> thrown in some editors where they come to the conclusion that
> deletion  
> is necessary to improve the project. But it's an internal phenomenon
> -  
> something Wikipedia seems to provoke in editors who have been here  
> after a while.

I've found that, since I stopped contributing to the project and started approaching it only as a reader, that I've gone a long way away from deletionism.  I find, as a reader, there are very few subjects I'd be surprised or disappointed to find are included in Wikipedia (they do exist, mostly in pop culture: when I go to read about something I'm unfamiliar with, and find unhelpful, in-universe drivel instead).  For the most part, I'm surprised and disappointed *not* to be able to learn about something esoteric or less notable than some what prefer.

A big, broad, wonderful WIkipedia: readers love it.  As readers ourselves, we should know this by now.


Cheers,

-- 
Mark Gallagher
0439 704 975
http://formonelane.net/
"Even potatoes have their bad days, Igor." --- Count Duckula