[WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary

[Cathy Edwards]

Thanks so much to everyone who replied to my email about finding a
'deletionist' (for want of a better word). It's been really useful to
hear your takes on the subject. The main points that have become clear
to me from this discussion on and offlist is that 

1. The inclusionist / deletionist debate peaked a few years ago
2. BLPs are perhaps the area where the inclusionist/deletionist debate
is most vibrant - for various reasons
3. A strong argument that remains for adopting a slightly more
deletionist attitude is that some WP users go to it as a primary source
for vital information (e.g. medical advice).

To address these briefly: as I mentioned in my first mail the programme
takes a historical look at the first 20 years of the World Wide Web - so
hopefully the Wikipedia deletionist / inclusionist issue is legitimate
from that perspective - would you agree? The timing of the PARC press
release http://asc-parc.blogspot.com/ which triggered the Guaridan
article coincidied unexpectedly with my request to you, but our
programme won't go out until early next year, so for us it's not so much
a question of seizing on a newsworthy story, as reflecting on how
Wikipedia has been shaped since its inception. The feeling from the
programme team is that debates over criteria for inclusion - all the
issues that surround adding content/deleting/reverting edits/controlling
vandalism - are really fundamental to an understanding of what Wikipedia
is.

It's great to hear about the issues surrounding BLPS, and thanks to all
those who pointed me in this direction and explained the subject so
lucidly.

"Deletionism" is clearly a contentious term, but from what I've read and
heard there are still arguments in favour of more rigurous control of
what qualifies for inclusion. Libel/offence in BLPs, and the question of
WP being used for medical advice are two big arguments in favour of this
- are there others which some of you would also consider still current?

It's be great to hear more of your thoughts on this - if you want to
join the debate on our blog we're really really keen for people to
contribute, precisely so we can try to include the issues that are
important to you, and so you can help us NOT be misleading! There are
several posts on the blog about Wikipedia - here's Jimmy Wales's post
for example
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/digitalrevolution/2009/07/what-was-my-goal-wh
en-i-came-u.shtml. Enjoy!

Best wishes,

Cathy

Cathy Edwards
Digital Revolution
Room MC4 C6, BBC Media Centre, 201 Wood Lane, London, W12 7TQ
T  0208 008 3985

digital revolution (working title) is an open and collaborative
documentary about how the web is changing our lives
join the conversation on the web at www.bbc.co.uk/digitalrevolution or
follow us on twitter @BBCDigRev


-----Original Message-----
From: David Gerard [mailto:dgerard at gmail.com] 
Sent: 13 August 2009 22:05
To: English Wikipedia
Cc: Cathy Edwards
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Request to Wikipedians for BBC Documentary

2009/8/12 Cathy Edwards <Cathy.Edwards at bbc.co.uk>:

>> To add to and enrich the programme we'd really love to interview a UK

>> Wikipedian. We're looking for a passionate Deletionist - someone who 
>> identifies with the goals of Deletionism to create a high quality 
>> encyclopaedia, and does a lot of this kind of quality control 
>> themselves - perhaps someone who is a member of the Association of 
>> Deletionist Wikipedians.


Does such a person actually exist, self-identified? It appears from
similar discussion on wikimediauk-l that it doesn't, in fact.

(I suspect some corners of the media won't care, and we actually
considered picking someone to claim to be a "deletionist" and go on
programmes talking sense instead. This is an eample of the interests of
the media *not* being the interests of the encylcopedia at al, and us
having to work around that.)

Some seem to call others "deletionists" for deleting stuff that they
don't like. But as someone who's generally fairly inclusionist (and has
been called a "radical inclusionist" and gone "wtf" at the notion), I
can tell you that reviewing 24 hours of [[Special:Newpages]] will
convince you that lots of pages deserve death by cleansing fire as
absolutely quickly as possible.

So we're talking about increasingly fine gradations. And basically, the
media has seized upon this as an interesting and story-worthy idea about
four or five years after anyone actually working on Wikipedia cared.


- d.

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