Debating "Deletionism" At Wikipedia 484
Ian Lamont writes "In a strange turn of events, the Wikipedia entry for Deletionpedia — an online archive of deleted Wikipedia articles — is now being considered for deletion. The entry for Deletionpedia was created shortly after the publication of an Industry Standard article and a discussion on Slashdot this week. Almost immediately, it was nominated for deletion, which has sparked a running debate about the importance of the Wikipedia entry, Deletionpedia, and the sources that reference it. For the time being, you can read the current version of the Deletionpedia entry, while the Wikipedia editors carry on the debate."
Easy. (Score:5, Informative)
Is the website notable? Has the mainstream media reported on it? Does it meet the requirements listed in WP:WEB, the guideline for website notability?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(web) [wikipedia.org]
This should be all anyone needs to know to !vote on the issue. There is no 'special pass' for things that have been on Slashdot, or are about Wikipedia.
Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition (Score:3, Informative)
Do you mean like forks like Wikinfo [wikinfo.org], or unrelated, but similar, sites like Everything2 [everything2.com], h2g2 [bbc.co.uk] and Knol [google.com]?
The debate is over, article will not be deleted (Score:5, Informative)
The debate is over. The result of the discussion was keep. See talk page [wikipedia.org].
Re:Deletionpedia Belongs On Wikipedia (Score:1, Informative)
SkyOS is one of those cases of "no one cares" that's fairly justified. That said, it's slightly less niche than some of the software projects that are one there.
Re:Now that it's on Slashdot (Score:1, Informative)
Yes, an admin got word that the deletion discussion was about to be Slashdotted, and he closed it as "no consensus" (which probably is a true reflection of the state of the discussion at the time) to prevent another Slashdot avalanche.
Re:Deleting ANYTHING? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
If you saw some of the absolute crap that comes in as new articles on an hourly basis, you would quickly see the merit of deleting at least a few things. I've lost count of how many articles about garage bands that formed a month ago, childish "_____ is the coolest person ever!!!", vanity articles, and loony diatribes that I've marked for speedy deletion.
Re:The debate is over, article will not be deleted (Score:5, Informative)
Persistence pays off (Score:2, Informative)
I once got an article deleted that was fairly obscure, but relevant and worth a place in wikipedia nonetheless. After several months someone nominated it for speedy deletion, and it got deleted! I disputed the deletion with an explanation of why it was relevant, and got it reinstated; at the same time, I left a comment on the page's discussion (a reply back to the guy that deleted it) very professionally and unemotionally defending the article. Although I could tell he was a little peeved, he ended up letting it go and has since not tried to delete it or any other of my further articles.
Re:Mike Wooten (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think the Deletionpedia article should be deleted, but in this case, I think it's okay (although maybe an article merge would be a more accurate description of what should be done.)
Re:Hmm... (Score:1, Informative)
Yep, There was a very popular radio show in Portland Or. whose page was deleted because a pumpkin farmer in Oklahoma didn't find it relevant.
It seems interesting that the story of raising huge pumpkins in some hayseed town deserves 6 pages.
They should press the reset button and dump all the editors. That, or we should start a vandalism campaign.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
Why does anyone even bother with wikipedia? No controls (except for a few politically driven, control freak, admins).
It is essentially an encyclopedia created and sustained through mob rule. Most universities won't allow it to be cited and woe be upon the scientist that cites it in a scientific paper. I suspect if anyone were to rely on it for business decisions, they'd be fired.
Just out of curiousity, were you citing any other Encyclopedias (Britannica, Colliers, Encarta) in your university papers? If so, please let me know where you went, so I can avoid sending any of my children there. Even in the tiny state school I went to, I'd have been laughed out of class if I cited encyclopedias. Encyclopedias aren't primary or secondary sources, they're tertiary sources. They're just summaries of other sources, sources you should find and read yourself.
Wikipedia is better than many encyclopedias in current or esoteric subjects, but beyond finding some links to real material, I wouldn't consider it useful in real research. But I doubt any cosmologists are looking up Hawking Radiation in Britannica, either.
Re:Easy. (Score:1, Informative)
You know, back in the day, notability was the very last (and even somewhat controversial) thing to consider when killing articles, not first. There were all sorts of other guidelines, like verifiability that came first.
you'll have better luck if you cite them (Score:4, Informative)
I've rarely run into problems like that when I wrote decent stubs (at least a few sentences, ideally, say, two paragraphs) with footnotes to the sources I used, which were things other than geocities websites; for example, publications of the local government, or books published by the local historical society, or articles in at least semi-mainstream media.
Even then you occasionally run into someone who wants to delete it, but it really is much less frequent if your articles are solidly sourced.
Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition (Score:4, Informative)
The sole reference is to "Answers in Genesis", a creation "science" organization. Wow. Just... wow, that's just sad.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
I had to call out one particular mod on his discussion page and on the Jonathan Ive page, because he considered my changing of the iMac's introduction from 1997 to 1998 "vandalism" (a change I had to make FIVE times), and it was FINALLY changed.
You know... you /say/ that here in a Slashdot comment, and have been rewarded a (5, Insightful) for it, but there's a bit of a fact shortage. The complete history of changes to the Jonathan Ive article [wikipedia.org], as well as the article's talk page [wikipedia.org] (and its history) are publicly viewable to the world, and the events you described did not occur. At no time has the Jonathan Ive article claimed that the iMac was introduced in 1997 -- the fact that it was introduced in 1998 was added to the article in June 2005 and has remained there, uncontested, ever since. I'm not just some random person telling you this, either -- I've been monitoring the article on my watch list for two and a half years, and I would have noticed (and put a stop to) any sort of edit war over this.
So, AtariKee, my question to you is this: Are you intentionally lying for the sake of discrediting something you don't like, or are you merely confused about what you were doing on Wikipedia?
Also, there are no "mods" on Wikipedia. There are Administrators, but they don't moderate content except in very unusual circumstances -- that's everybody's collective responsibility.
Re:Easy. (Score:3, Informative)
It has been mentioned in several newspapers but the deletionist faction likes reading "non-trivial" as "major".
Re:I'm a confirmed WP deletionist (Score:3, Informative)
Poor quality articles do no good for anyone. Wikipedia is, at its heart, darwinian. Good text will remain. Deleted text can be re-added with the click of a button. It only stays deleted if it deserves to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Isomorphic/Essays/Deletionism/ [wikipedia.org] is a good essay on the subject.
Re:something to say != something relevant (Score:4, Informative)
The article on SUCS (the Swansea University Computer Society[1]) was deleted. Was it notable? It was the only computer society in the UK to have its own computer room, and was responsible for much of the TCP/IP code in Linux until a few years ago (it was credited on the boot screens of all kernels up until 2.5.66) when Alan Cox was a student. Other members of the society went on to work on projects like GNOME, Mono, GNUstep, LLVM, and several others. Its role in the early development of Linux is documented in several press interviews with Alan Cox, which sounds like it should meet your criteria.
The article was marked for deletion twice. The first time there was an overwhelming majority against. The second time, the person calling for the vote decided that all of the people who voted against were 'sock puppets' and so would have their votes ignored.
[1] Yes, I'm aware it's a terrible acronym.
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Informative)
It was, back before there was any power in it. When it was all just people trying to make the best articles they could. Sure it had mistakes, but so would anywhere you look.
Re:Nope. (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds like a nice test. I decided to try. Here are my opinions based on 10 loads of the link:
Club. Would keep. [dbatley.com]
Actor. Would expand and keep. [dbatley.com]
Company. Would expand and keep. [dbatley.com]
Rock band. Would keep it. [dbatley.com]
Some company. Should be improved, but would keep it. [dbatley.com]
Rock group. Would keep it. [dbatley.com]
Association. Would keep it. If such an association exists I don't see why not document it, however fringe it might be. [dbatley.com]
Self care. Would agree with deletion based on original research, though the concept is probably documented somewhere and could be fleshed out. [dbatley.com]
Pianist, with no useful data. Probably least worthy of keeping of the bunch. [dbatley.com]
Dancer. Lacks sources, but assuming the real world claims are true, I'd keep it [dbatley.com]
Of the 10, I'd only delete two of them, one for not containing anything useful (Khatia), and one for being original research. Wouldn't hurry with the deletion of any of them, I'd wait a couple of weeks to see if the article improves.
No articles on some random person, their cat, webpage, bad poetry, or a "List of Slashdot users with the letter 'i' in their name" so far.
Re:"garage bands" (Score:3, Informative)
why would a band that wants to be known want to put itself on a 'wikia' and not on wikipedia itself? that makes no sense whatsoever.
Look, here's how journalism is done. If I do all the research I can for an upcoming artist interview, and find that the wikipedia entry for the band says that the band will have a new album out in 2008, but there is no citation, I can either email the band's publicist or ask the band directly in the interview to confirm that information. If I do get confirmation, then I get a scoop. Then I can go back and edit the wikipedia entry to cite my own article, because I have confirmed the information.
I can understand wikipedians who are annoyed when a bunch of 8th graders make up a band and put up a wikipedia article about it. But how often does that really happen? And, how many of your favorite bands started out as a bunch of 8th grader wannabes?
wikipedia nazis need to balance themselves and realize that wikipedia has been successful beyond their wildest dreams and that with that success comes some side-effects. No need to get crazy.