[WikiEN-l] Newbie and not-so-newbie biting

[Emily Monroe]

> The one that matters most to me is that something of the order of 2%  
> of speedy nominations are just cleanup cases (sometimes extreme, but  
> not nonsense as often tagged).

I assume you're an admin, and have the power to speedily delete. Do  
you actually clean up the article instead of deleting? If so, THANK  
YOU SO MUCH!

> The next number that occurs to me is that perhaps 5% of speedy  
> deletion generate queries. You can see them on my usertalk, where  
> most are better than the "Thanks alot jerkoff!" section. They all  
> need an accurate answer that is also reasonably helpful.

True. The more somebody doesn't know the social norms of an  
environment, the more times you have to remind them of such and help  
them out.

> Note that the more polite queries tend to be from "spam"-type  
> deletion taggings. The assumption is that helping people who really  
> are trying to get their company or product a Wikipedia page is part  
> of the job if you patrol CSD. Well, I agree with that but it  
> consumes time.

Yeah, it does seem to me that the more "spammy" the article, the more  
likely the person simply doesn't know of Wikipedia's COI, spam, and  
notability requirements. It's not that they are writing in bad faith,  
they really don't know that, for example, just because their  
competitor has written an article doesn't mean that they should write  
an article about their own company. Sad, really.

> The assumption is that helping people who really are trying to get  
> their company or product a Wikipedia page is part of the job if you  
> patrol CSD. Well, I agree with that but it consumes time.

Perhaps the main obstacle in helping someone is the time consumption.

Emily
On Sep 18, 2009, at 11:18 AM, Charles Matthews wrote:

> David Goodman wrote:
>> " the overwhelming majority of speedily deleted articles deserve to  
>> be
>> so." -- yes, so they do. But of the people who contribute them, many
>> can be encouraged to learn how to write adequate articles and perhaps
>> become regular contributors. People who write inadequate unsourced
>> promotional articles can be simply rejected, or alternatively  helped
>> to write good ones or at least realize and understand  why their  
>> topic
>> is unsuitable and respect us for our standards.  If one out of ten
>> respond favorably to our endeavors, we'll gain 100 good  
>> contributors a
>> day.
>>
>> What is required is the patience to deal properly with all of them,
>> although only a minority will respond as we would like them to.
> OK, I have been doing a lot of speedy patrol since the topic last came
> up on the list. Initially I was interested to see if one became
> punch-drunk by intensive sessions (not too bad, in fact). I now have
> some feeling for statistics. The one that matters most to me is that
> something of the order of 2% of speedy nominations are just cleanup
> cases (sometimes extreme, but not nonsense as often tagged). Very
> largely these are of Asian origin. I think we might all agree that the
> "market for Wikipedians" in (anglophone) Asia is nothing like  
> saturated.
>
> The next number that occurs to me is that perhaps 5% of speedy  
> deletion
> generate queries. You can see them on my usertalk, where most are  
> better
> than the "Thanks alot jerkoff!" section. They all need an accurate
> answer that is also reasonably helpful. Note that the more polite
> queries tend to be from "spam"-type deletion taggings. The  
> assumption is
> that helping people who really are trying to get their company or
> product a Wikipedia page is part of the job if you patrol CSD. Well, I
> agree with that but it consumes time.
>
> My own feelings are that the "presentist" bias of submissions is a
> terrible skewing of the encyclopedia idea, but I quite see that this
> should never enter my admin work. David's argument seems to need
> shading: an editor who is only really interested in creating a company
> or product article may not become a general-purpose Wikipedian. But of
> course he or she may, and we just don't know. (It's the old argument
> about advertising being mostly wasted money, and the argument is valid
> here.)
>
> Charles
>
>
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