4 ms·

Wikipedia should disable "non-notable" article deletion for a year and see what happens. The rampant deletionist problem really hurts editor morale. People spen

Wikipedia should disable "non-notable" article deletion for a year and see what happens. The rampant deletionist problem really hurts editor morale. People spend hours working on articles only to have them deleted, often for arbitrary reasons. For a site that lives and dies by its ability to attract new volunteers, they sure do their best to scare people off.

smackfu 17y ago
It really is sad how much effort is put into identifying and arguing about what articles to delete. It looks like there are about 100 of these each day. Especially since there are still so many holes in the encyclopedia. For instance, parallel giant slalom is a snowboarding event in the Olympics. Yet it doesn't have a page on Wikipedia, just a one line mention on a general snowboarding page: "an event that involves head-to-head racing". I would not be surprised if someone had created a page at some point but it was deleted for not being notable or sourced or some other junk.
acdha 17y ago
Definitely: I stopped contributing (content and money) to Wikipedia after non-notable deletions ~2006 took out most of my contributions. At the time it was noted that it was easier to list a porn star (anything with a major distributor was automatically considered notable) than an academic who hadn't managed to get a real dead-tree newspaper article written about them (journals, awards, etc. didn't count as much as 2 paragraphs in USA Today). I hope that's changed since then but it definitely killed any interest I had in contributing more time for a uninterested editor to discard without comment.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  The biggest problem is that blogs aren't considered a notable source: > Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self-published_sources_.28online_and_paper.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self... This makes it really hard to defend open source software against WP:N allegations, since most of your coverage is from these kinds of sources...
  - acdha 17y ago
    Kind of amusing given the extreme old-media bias they have for a web-based project: want to bet that a post on an NYT blog would count?
  - aaronbrethorst 17y ago
    Dare Obasanjo, a Program Manager at Microsoft and son of the former President of Nigeria [1], has run into this same issue on his (ahem, non-notable) blog: "[I]t irritates me that I have a Wikipedia entry with a giant banner that claims I'm lying about my parenthood" [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olusegun_Obasanjo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olusegun_Obasanjo [2] http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2007/03/13/WikipediaWhosYourDaddy.aspx http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2007/03/13/WikipediaWhosYo...
    - OtherMichael 17y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dare_Obasanjo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dare_Obasanjo deleted for non-notability....
nollidge 17y ago
It seems to me that deleting an article should require nearly 100% "delete" votes, for if even a small group of people wish to keep it, it is obviously useful to them, and it gets in no one's way.
- applicative 17y ago
  This does seem right. The really stupid articles -- "Hi I am George Smith I was born in Brooklyn" -- who would defend them?
  - bradbeattie 17y ago
    George Smith and his friends.
ig1 17y ago
Wikipedia also lives and dies by it's reputation. People have tried forking Wikipedia with more inclusive policies numerous times (the code base and articles are open source), and they've all ended up filled with junk. I was involved with Wikipedia very heavily for it's first three years (not been involved for the last 5 years), and there have been periods when it went through more liberal stages of allowing a broader range of content. The policies they have now aren't something that've just been made up. They're policies that have evolved over a decade of seeing what works and what doesn't. Non-notable articles often end up abandoned and vandalized for long period. Sure the precise criteria for notability and verifiability might be debatable, but there's absolutely no question that those criteria help make Wikipedia a reliable source of data. Think about the reason you want something in Wikipedia (rather than just say on a Google Sites page or Mahalo, etc). You want it on Wikipedia precisely because of the reputation it has, and that reputation is in a large part down to the criteria of notability and verifiability.
- deleted 17y ago
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- deleted 17y ago
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- applicative 17y ago
  > Non-notable articles often end up abandoned and vandalized for long period. Yes, but can't we use some other criteria for this than the utterly absurd ones being deployed to destroy all of the articles on open source software? I used to use the Wikipedia to orient myself in that domain, but now it really is practically useless due to the latest round of deletion madness, which is based on the "If it's not mentioned in the New York Times, it doesn't exist" criterion. (For example, I was looking into wikis recently, and found that if I went back 6 months, the articles were much better...) It seems plain that different criteria need to be developed for different domains. Either the destruction of the `dwm` article follows from the principles being deployed or it doesn't; and either it is worth an article (which it would be simply insane to deny) or it isn't. You don't take a stand on which combination of views you hold, and what the solution is, but only affirm the abstract principle that 'there are limits'.
bradbeattie 17y ago
Notability is a bit of a spectrum. On one end you have articles like "World War 2", on the other you have articles like "Sir Chompsalot, the fourth cat of the Doe's in Manchester, Aberdeen Ave." If we can agree that the latter shouldn't be in Wikipedia, then we have to build some sort of guideline for sufficient notability. That's what http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-notable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-notable is trying to do. It's likely more productive to try and change that first instead of railing against specific AFDs. If you think all articles including the absurd example given above should be included, notability isn't the only thing brought into question. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Wikipedia_is_not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Wikipedia_is_not Ultimately, the content is yours to fork if you'd like. As mentioned elsewhere in these discussions, it's really the community that's the main workhorse, something which can't be forked (split perhaps, but not forked).

smackfu 17y ago

It really is sad how much effort is put into identifying and arguing about what articles to delete. It looks like there are about 100 of these each day. Especially since there are still so many holes in the encyclopedia. For instance, parallel giant slalom is a snowboarding event in the Olympics. Yet it doesn't have a page on Wikipedia, just a one line mention on a general snowboarding page: "an event that involves head-to-head racing". I would not be surprised if someone had created a page at some point but it was deleted for not being notable or sourced or some other junk.

acdha 17y ago

Definitely: I stopped contributing (content and money) to Wikipedia after non-notable deletions ~2006 took out most of my contributions. At the time it was noted that it was easier to list a porn star (anything with a major distributor was automatically considered notable) than an academic who hadn't managed to get a real dead-tree newspaper article written about them (journals, awards, etc. didn't count as much as 2 paragraphs in USA Today). I hope that's changed since then but it definitely killed any interest I had in contributing more time for a uninterested editor to discard without comment.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
steveklabnik 17y ago
The biggest problem is that blogs aren't considered a notable source: > Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self-published_sources_.28online_and_paper.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Self... This makes it really hard to defend open source software against WP:N allegations, since most of your coverage is from these kinds of sources...
- acdha 17y ago
  Kind of amusing given the extreme old-media bias they have for a web-based project: want to bet that a post on an NYT blog would count?
- aaronbrethorst 17y ago
  Dare Obasanjo, a Program Manager at Microsoft and son of the former President of Nigeria [1], has run into this same issue on his (ahem, non-notable) blog: "[I]t irritates me that I have a Wikipedia entry with a giant banner that claims I'm lying about my parenthood" [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olusegun_Obasanjo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olusegun_Obasanjo [2] http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2007/03/13/WikipediaWhosYourDaddy.aspx http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2007/03/13/WikipediaWhosYo...
  - OtherMichael 17y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dare_Obasanjo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dare_Obasanjo deleted for non-notability....

nollidge 17y ago

It seems to me that deleting an article should require nearly 100% "delete" votes, for if even a small group of people wish to keep it, it is obviously useful to them, and it gets in no one's way.

applicative 17y ago
This does seem right. The really stupid articles -- "Hi I am George Smith I was born in Brooklyn" -- who would defend them?
- bradbeattie 17y ago
  George Smith and his friends.

ig1 17y ago

Wikipedia also lives and dies by it's reputation. People have tried forking Wikipedia with more inclusive policies numerous times (the code base and articles are open source), and they've all ended up filled with junk. I was involved with Wikipedia very heavily for it's first three years (not been involved for the last 5 years), and there have been periods when it went through more liberal stages of allowing a broader range of content. The policies they have now aren't something that've just been made up. They're policies that have evolved over a decade of seeing what works and what doesn't. Non-notable articles often end up abandoned and vandalized for long period. Sure the precise criteria for notability and verifiability might be debatable, but there's absolutely no question that those criteria help make Wikipedia a reliable source of data. Think about the reason you want something in Wikipedia (rather than just say on a Google Sites page or Mahalo, etc). You want it on Wikipedia precisely because of the reputation it has, and that reputation is in a large part down to the criteria of notability and verifiability.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
applicative 17y ago
> Non-notable articles often end up abandoned and vandalized for long period. Yes, but can't we use some other criteria for this than the utterly absurd ones being deployed to destroy all of the articles on open source software? I used to use the Wikipedia to orient myself in that domain, but now it really is practically useless due to the latest round of deletion madness, which is based on the "If it's not mentioned in the New York Times, it doesn't exist" criterion. (For example, I was looking into wikis recently, and found that if I went back 6 months, the articles were much better...) It seems plain that different criteria need to be developed for different domains. Either the destruction of the `dwm` article follows from the principles being deployed or it doesn't; and either it is worth an article (which it would be simply insane to deny) or it isn't. You don't take a stand on which combination of views you hold, and what the solution is, but only affirm the abstract principle that 'there are limits'.

bradbeattie 17y ago

Notability is a bit of a spectrum. On one end you have articles like "World War 2", on the other you have articles like "Sir Chompsalot, the fourth cat of the Doe's in Manchester, Aberdeen Ave." If we can agree that the latter shouldn't be in Wikipedia, then we have to build some sort of guideline for sufficient notability. That's what http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-notable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-notable is trying to do. It's likely more productive to try and change that first instead of railing against specific AFDs. If you think all articles including the absurd example given above should be included, notability isn't the only thing brought into question. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Wikipedia_is_not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Wikipedia_is_not Ultimately, the content is yours to fork if you'd like. As mentioned elsewhere in these discussions, it's really the community that's the main workhorse, something which can't be forked (split perhaps, but not forked).