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."
Paradox! (Score:5, Interesting)
I sense the LHC is becoming redundant here!
Easy...to game (Score:5, Interesting)
Great. We all know what kind of site Wikipedia has evolved into, we just haven't settled on the price.
Re:Easy...to game (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't even have to buy it. From doing a Google News search, it looks to me like the controversy over deleting the Deletionpedia entry is going to make it notable even if it didn't start out that way.
I did that (Score:4, Interesting)
I just was too amused by the idea of an article on Deletionpedia, a listing of articles deleted from Wikipedia, in the Wikipedia
Although, actually, it really is notable enough to deserve an article.
Wikipedia editors deleting open source projects (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Easy...to game (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess if you can buy the necessary media coverage you are notable enough, seems OK to me.
speed deleting (Score:4, Interesting)
One problem I feel is that a page should have considerable time of protection. As you can see, the buzz of deletionpedia is still growing, so it is actively becoming notable. If articles that were correct could have 30 days to build their cases that would at least be some improvement.
Re:Easy...to game (Score:3, Interesting)
Are we allowed to chuckle at the drift away from Wikipedia's original, relatively anarchist philosophy?
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Though I generally agree, I feel that the notability guidelines are broken for other reasons.
Consider, for instance, a Wikipedia article on basically any random public high school. As long as there is a website, you can make a reasonable (and arguably useful) article, with lots of information regarding classes offered, policies, etc. A public high school is usually going to be the only school in the town, maybe one of a few. The result of this is that the town newspaper is going to mention it. Most towns have newspapers, and as long as it's not *too* rural of a town, the newspaper will be online. That basically meets the criteria (it's mentioned in a printed source, which everyone has access to, and facts included are verifiable).
Is some random high school notable? I'd say not. Now, one can make the other argument that it doesn't matter, because the point is to be a useful source of information. I'd agree with that -- the information is of limited use, but it's going to be useful to the population of that town, which, if only numbering in the couple of thousand, is still substantial. However, it's certainly not "notable".
Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting suggestion in the AfD comments (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing I noticed in the AfD comments that seems like a pretty good idea was to have any Wikipedia articles that get deleted be instead transwikied to Deletionpedia.
Naturally, that's not as good as not deleting them from Wikipedia in the first place...but it seems to me that at least it solves the problem of the work being lost entirely when the AfD finishes and the article is sent into the aether.
Dan Aris
Re:something to say != something relevant (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmmm, actually Fox News has more credibility.
The bias on Fox is overt and wholly transparent. The bias on Wikipedia is covert and secretive, though it is of course even more biased and manipulated than Fox.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe that there is a reason why what you say is more important than you know. Wikipedia gives a rough uniformity to the presentation of information. Using that and a few software tools, it's possible to glean more information than simply what was put into the wiki page. Deleting information too briskly will lead to a diminution of the value of both the wiki page information, reference veracity of the site, and the value of any information based on combinatorial information.
Using an example offered by someone else, if it is known that there are 123,000 high schools in the USA, and 75% of them are listed on Wikipedia. You can draw some reasonably credible information about high schools in the USA from scanning the wiki pages. Yes, Google indexes the Internet/www but the trouble is that information on the Internet is hardly presented in conformal manner. That is one of the benefits of Wikipedia, or could be.
There are lots of ideas about how to best organize the information on the Internet, but all of the require voluntary compliance by the authors of the information. That is the one very cool thing about Wikipedia. Perhaps, someone will suggest a semantic web version of how to publish pages of information on the Internet so that the combined reality of such pages IS a living encyclopedia. Using something like the single sign-on and security schemes, it is possible for vetted reviewers to rate each such site so that when you view it in your browser, those ratings are available for you to see. If the information on the site you are viewing is only rated 2 out of 10, then you know whether it is trustworthy information and whether you need to seek corroboration.
This deletion thing is sad in the respect of what it means, of what will not happen. Wikipedia is a good thing as an idea. It is even more valuable as a information repository or data warehouse. At least it could be... sigh
A good wiki with a bad version control system (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole debate is caused - IMHO - by having a bad versioning system as the Wikipedia's backend. Deleting and undeleting whole articles should be as transparent and open as deleting and undeleting paragraphs within an article. The history feature provides such transparency. Currently, instead, deleted articles are zapped: inaccesible, unreadable, unrecoverable. Allowing history access (and an option in "advanced search") for deleted articles would make this issue a lot simpler.
Mike Wooten (Score:4, Interesting)
It's marked for deletion!
Re:There was once a time... (Score:3, Interesting)
Your grandiosity aside, professors laughed at wikipedia because of credibility issues citing random sources.
And they are quite right.
Re:Unfortunately Wikipedia is going to the dogs (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, the English Wikipedia does appear to be just past it's growth peak [wikipedia.org] right now.
Re:Easy. (Score:1, Interesting)
Slashdot counts as a major media source, we frequently have a high enough readership to bring most web servers to their knees, hell its been named after us.
The Slashdot effect.
Its got to be reported on my corporate mainstream media to be notable? what kind of bullshit is that? It's only notable if fox news says it is?
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The debate is over, article will not be deleted (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is bullshit, when you look at the actual votes. (Or "non-votes", as I'm sure someone will bring up.)
It should have been given a "keep".
Re:Sounds like Wikipedia needs competition (Score:5, Interesting)
I had high hopes for Citizendium, but wikis thrive on drive-by editing, and I don't think Citizendium allows that. It sure hasn't gotten anywhere much in the year it's been running, and it's woefully incomplete.
Re:Deleting ANYTHING? Really? (Score:1, Interesting)
Wikipedia editors, are they all wankers, or does it just seem that way?
Deletionist - a new 21st century occupation? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just registered deletionism.com, and then on second thought realize that deletionist.com was likely the far more valuable one...
"Deletionist" sounds like a new 21st century occupation, involving one or more of the following:
* Spam filtering and deletion
* Extranous information removal (ie. the wikipedia sections being discussed)
* Sanatizing information stores
* On-line reputation management
Regardless, IMHO, "Deletionist" is highly brandable - intiutive name for a website offering deletion related services. Welcome thoughts.
Ron
the problem with wikipedia (Score:5, Interesting)
What really gets me about wikipedia is stuff like I Am Rich [wikipedia.org]. Nominated for deletion, the consensus wound up being to keep it. Not to redirect it but to keep it. Then, the nominator, having failed in his attempt to delete it, merges it, despite consensus to the contrary, into App Store [wikipedia.org]. Later, another user comes along and deletes it, saying it's "not important [wikipedia.org]".
But wait - it gets better! The same guy nominates Heavy Metal (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) [wikipedia.org] for deletion and fails in his attempt. So what does he do? Merges every episode, save that one, into List of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles episodes [wikipedia.org]. You see - this user knows he couldn't get consensus by an AfD so he engages in backroom deals to gain support.
Of course, none of this tops Torchic [wikipedia.org]. A front page featured article with 20 paragraphs and 46 citations now reduced to redirecting to a list of pokemon, with 2-3 paragraphs (depending on whether or not a one sentence paragraph counts) and no citations. Amazing stuff.
Re:Easy...to game (Score:4, Interesting)
Are we allowed to chuckle at the drift away from Wikipedia's original, relatively anarchist philosophy?
I've always found anarchists to be a bit naive about the way the world works. Historically the state of anarchy in countries has been the excuse some 'strong leader' needed to take over, or have turned into mob rule or domination by an abusive oligarchy.
If you look at the founders of the US, the reason for all the rules and checks and balances was to try to stop this happening. They, quite rightly, knew that 'mere democracy' was a dangerous thing.
Re:I'm a confirmed WP deletionist (Score:3, Interesting)
A sprawling article of 350KB does no-one any good. Wikipedia articles should be concise summaries of the topic. Too many articles on WP are bullet point lists of referenced facts, with no overall narrative structure. Keeping a high signal-to-noise ratio requires filtering out all the noise. Too many wikipedians believe that a mention in a reliable source means something is notable. Newspaper quotes are the worst - newsworthy is not the same as noteworthy.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect that parent was saying the burden of proof must be on the editor who posts the article, otherwise we'll have articles for both jesus and the flying spaghetti monster, each stating as fact that the deity of choice created the universe in a fit of pique after discovering him/her/itself unable to microwave a burrito so hot that he/she/it couldn't eat it
Wikipedia reader? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:There was once a time... (Score:3, Interesting)
This doesn't even have anything to do with professors being accurate and honest. The simple fact is is that the peer reviews on a wikipedia page may also include weirdos with no scientific knowledge whatsoever. Having once edited wikipedia I saw that firsthand, too.
Re:Nope. (Score:5, Interesting)
really a social experiment that's going into uncharted territory
What part of basic organizational behavior do you find so uncharted?
An orthodoxy evolves, controlled by a core group, and heretics are pilloried.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Deleting ANYTHING from wikipedia is stupid.
I recommend anyone criticising Wikipedia to actually go and look at Deletionpedia. Go on, do it - click on random a few times. I've never seen so much crap.
If people are seriously thinking Deletionpedia is some kind of argument against Wikipedia's deletion process, either they haven't actually looked at it, or if they really think that material should be on Wikipedia, they've got a strange view of what an encyclopedia should look like.
If something is PROVEN to be inaccurate, then that's another story.
Wait, wait, wait - so on the one hand, people criticise Wikipedia when it has information found to be false, but now you want it to have any information people put there until proven false? Which is it?
Wikipedia can't win - as with many issues, there are always two groups of people (or sometimes the same people) who criticise it from opposite viewpoints, and it's impossible to satisfy both of them. And where it tries to be sensible and compromise between two extremes, that just means both sides whine about it!
Besides, I don't HONESTLY know of anywhere that I can quote wikipedia and be taken seriously. Encyclopedia Brittanica, et al, don't have that problem.
You shouldn't be quoting any encyclopedia as a reference, and if people will accept that, they're still fools. As with any encyclopedia, you follow the refences quoted by the encyclopedia article.
Furtherfore, this comment is absurd, given your earlier comments - do you think the Britannica editors have a policy of "We should allow any old crap written by anyone about anything, even if it has no sources"? And do you think their stance on this helps or harms their reputation as having reliable information?
This is another perfect example of criticising it from both sides: you complain the Wikipedia removes unsuitable articles, and then complain that it isn't like Britannica.
Fascination with Rejection (Score:3, Interesting)
Back in the impressionist days in Paris, The Salon de Refuse was 10 times more popular than the salon for artwork. People are just fascinated to see what doesn't make the cut, since what does tends to look very self-similar because of the rules to "make the cut".
Re:Easy. (Score:2, Interesting)
Dude! You are the problem at wikipedia! This is why me and a bunch of other people don't even bother to take our time to edit anymore. Go hang yourself, digitally speaking.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
I probably wouldn't have minded it that much if I hadn't used a photograph of the actual document and the transcript from the National Archives as the reference. When something can get marked as vandalism, and you are tidying up an entry and using the freaking original in the Archives as a source... just pissed me off.