[WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions

[Gwern Branwen]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 12:50 PM, Cool Hand Luke
<failure.to.communicate at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:20 AM, The Cunctator <cunctator at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> At the same time,
>>
>> *Always leave something undone.
>> **Give the author a chance.*
>> *Build the web.*
>> *Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point.*
>>
>> and
>>
>> *If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular
>> editing,
>> rather than deletion.*
>>
>>
>
> These maxims were very good in the formative stages of our project.  You and
> other early editors were right (maybe even prophetic) to adopt them.  The
> fledgling project needed hands, eyeballs, and content.  By zealously keeping
> and expanding content--even shoddy content--we grew dramatically.
>
> But this debate has come to a boil because we've been too slow in realizing
> that the balance must change because conditions have changed.  We are no
> longer a small project, but one that places in the top three google search
> results for almost any topic in our encyclopedia.  We have succeeded because
> of our formative policies, and with our success comes responsibility.
>
> In an era when any living subject can have their life harmed by a poorly
> vetted biography, we should strike a new balance.  We should not bite off
> more than we can chew.  In this area, we ought to weed out BLPs that we can
> no longer maintain at appropriately high standatds.  As a happy consequence
> of this process, many notable biographies will be improved.  I hope that
> this improvement and re-examination process is continual.
>
> In this way, we will effectively shoulder the responsibility we have for
> maintaining one of the top ten sites on the internet.
>
> Cool Hand Luke

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I
reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind
me." eh?

You older Wikipedians run along now; you've had your day. The adults
are talking now - I are serious editors, this are serious website.

Funny how BLPs have been the most serious threat facing the project,
so serious that mass mutiny is justified and the jettisoning of our
old ways and practices - and have been since at least 2006. I guess
when I look cynically upon the Chicken Little BLP warriors, it just
reflects my own ignorance of how Wikipedia teeters on the brink every
day, how countless suicides and ruined lives have been averted by
their heroic daily efforts.

-- 
gwern