4 ms·

The two-sides of Wikipedia

31 points by jancona 16y ago

tptacek 16y ago
This guy is upset that Wikipedia deleted an article about a Swedish indie-rock band that appears to have been covered in depth by one alt-weekly in Vancouver and nobody else --- an article, incidentally, that was posted and deleted 3 times before that alt-weekly one-pager was published. I don't know how we benefit from rehashing this over and over again, and since this is the #1 issue people appear to have with Wikipedia (and the issue most directly and frequently addressed by Wikipedia's voluminous site guidelines), I think it's fair to point that out. But, once again, with feeling: Wikipedia is not an effort to organize all the world's information. That's Google. Wikipedia is an effort to build the world's best encyclopedia. The difference between an "encyclopedia" and "all the world's information" is that the information in an encylopedia needs to be reliable. To ensure that the information in the encylopedia has a chance at being reliable, the encyclopedia is constrained to information that can be written about notable topics cover in reliable secondary sources. Virtually everybody who writes an article about a nonnotable topic ends up objecting, often loudly, when the article is deleted. That's understandable. Wikipedia could do a better job of warning people of the bar their topic needs to clear. But they can't make resurrection of deleted articles trivial to anybody, or they will spend all their time re-litigating deletions. This is not helped by the fact that WP articles gain extremely favorable search engine position almost by default. People seem to have a really hard time with the idea that Wikipedia imposes restrictions in order to make the lives of editors and maintainers easier. But --- and I say this as a WP-skeptic --- the community effort that built WP is monumental and unprecedented. They get the benefit of the doubt. Regardless, the likelihood that the particular "speedy deletion" policy this article complains about will ever be resolved is epsilon. Speedy deletion, particularly of no-name bands, vanity books, websites, and tiny companies is almost the first line of defense against article-creep. Changing the policy would be an existential change to the way WP is managed. Which doesn't matter, because you can resurrect speedy'd articles already; you just need to take the article to Deletion Review and make a case for it. Maybe WP needs an article on First Aid Kit. I like Fleet Foxes, too! (WP has excellent coverage of Fleet Foxes). But WP is run by human beings donating their time, and people make mistakes, and it is utterly disingenuous to pretend like First Aid Kit is an obvious "keep".
- tokenadult 16y ago
  Virtually everybody who writes an article about a nonnotable topic ends up objecting, often loudly, when the article is deleted. For further comments on this issue, I'd like anyone who has posted an article that has later been deleted to tell us all about the sources that were posted with that article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability I wonder what sources people are finding before they post new articles.
- mdisraeli 16y ago
  Wikipedia does not even aim to be the best encyclopedia, just an encyclopedia. I've not read the actual article, as it seems that the host can't cope with the traffic, but if it was speedily deleted, it probably deserved it - most speedy deletions are genuine and helpful. However, as an experienced wikipedia editor, I have to say that you are wrong. A few years ago, I built up over 500 mainspace edits and received numerous barnstars. I worked to correct minor errors, source references for articles, rewrite articles to flow better, and even to reduce tensions amongst editors and promote the editing of wikipedia by experts. But in the end, the corrosive and bitter nature of the community drove me away, much as it drives away a lot of people who are both knowledgable in their field and able to write about it. "People seem to have a really hard time with the idea that Wikipedia imposes restrictions in order to make the lives of editors and maintainers easier." This idea is trivial to disprove. Firstly, the majority of articles do not need constant attention, and the number of articles is not directly proportional to the level of vandalism. The majority of editors focus on a few articles, and certain high-interest topics get the most attention. Very few editors actually go and work on random articles, so stating that there is any sort of diversion of energy by the presense of minority interest articles is false. If anything, removing minority interest kicks away the editors that supported those articles, editors who might otherwise have contributed to vandalism patrolling and other more widely helpful activities. Article-creep is an entirely imagined threat that simply does not exist. In fact, a lot of articles nominated for deletion for not being notable have been fairly stable, unvandalised, verifiable, and even maintaned by their creators and related community. No one had an issue with the presense of these articles beyond not being notable enough - as if a purely electronic encyclopedia had some pressing page limit about to be reached. You mention secondary sources, yet wikipedia editors as a whole can't understand how to use primary, secondary and tirtary sources correctly. It is a widely held (and enforced) belief that, when wanting to state that something was said in a book, only a secondary source can be cited. So they would prefer a newspaper's review to the actual book itself, for example. This is, for most cases, simply absurd. Let's consider the deletion process. Officially, Articles For Deletion is about concensus. In practice, it's typically just a vote by the in-croud, most of which never explain their opinion beyond a brief comment. It doesn't matter how much you source an article during this process - it will normally get culled anyhow if they have taken a dislike. Indeed, there is a distinct dislike of trying to improve articles - instead you should just nominate them for deletion (never mind the fact that a quick google search can often give useful references to shore up an article)! I could go on, but I'd be here all night.
fpg 16y ago
Wikipedia is an awful community but it produces a great end product.
the_pwnz 16y ago
Wikipedia is a great product. The community, on the other hand...
gojomo 16y ago
!#@!@^% deletionists are ruining Wikipedia. They’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
- jrockway 16y ago
  The second to the wall will be people who think Wikipedia artices are worth killing for.
  - gojomo 16y ago
    Don't panic, the revolution will be peaceful and well-read. Perhaps we'll just scare the deletionists off to their own planet with (WP:V!) stories of a giant mutant space goat.
watt 16y ago
The Lady Gaga article was too deleted one time (maybe more) in the beginning (in year 2008). If that's saying something. ( http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Lady_gaga_%28deleted_04_Jun_2008_at_03:00%29 http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Lady_gaga... )

31 points by jancona 16y ago

This guy is upset that Wikipedia deleted an article about a Swedish indie-rock band that appears to have been covered in depth by one alt-weekly in Vancouver and nobody else --- an article, incidentally, that was posted and deleted 3 times before that alt-weekly one-pager was published. I don't know how we benefit from rehashing this over and over again, and since this is the #1 issue people appear to have with Wikipedia (and the issue most directly and frequently addressed by Wikipedia's voluminous site guidelines), I think it's fair to point that out. But, once again, with feeling: Wikipedia is not an effort to organize all the world's information. That's Google. Wikipedia is an effort to build the world's best encyclopedia. The difference between an "encyclopedia" and "all the world's information" is that the information in an encylopedia needs to be reliable. To ensure that the information in the encylopedia has a chance at being reliable, the encyclopedia is constrained to information that can be written about notable topics cover in reliable secondary sources. Virtually everybody who writes an article about a nonnotable topic ends up objecting, often loudly, when the article is deleted. That's understandable. Wikipedia could do a better job of warning people of the bar their topic needs to clear. But they can't make resurrection of deleted articles trivial to anybody, or they will spend all their time re-litigating deletions. This is not helped by the fact that WP articles gain extremely favorable search engine position almost by default. People seem to have a really hard time with the idea that Wikipedia imposes restrictions in order to make the lives of editors and maintainers easier. But --- and I say this as a WP-skeptic --- the community effort that built WP is monumental and unprecedented. They get the benefit of the doubt. Regardless, the likelihood that the particular "speedy deletion" policy this article complains about will ever be resolved is epsilon. Speedy deletion, particularly of no-name bands, vanity books, websites, and tiny companies is almost the first line of defense against article-creep. Changing the policy would be an existential change to the way WP is managed. Which doesn't matter, because you can resurrect speedy'd articles already; you just need to take the article to Deletion Review and make a case for it. Maybe WP needs an article on First Aid Kit. I like Fleet Foxes, too! (WP has excellent coverage of Fleet Foxes). But WP is run by human beings donating their time, and people make mistakes, and it is utterly disingenuous to pretend like First Aid Kit is an obvious "keep".

tokenadult 16y ago
Virtually everybody who writes an article about a nonnotable topic ends up objecting, often loudly, when the article is deleted. For further comments on this issue, I'd like anyone who has posted an article that has later been deleted to tell us all about the sources that were posted with that article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability I wonder what sources people are finding before they post new articles.
mdisraeli 16y ago
Wikipedia does not even aim to be the best encyclopedia, just an encyclopedia. I've not read the actual article, as it seems that the host can't cope with the traffic, but if it was speedily deleted, it probably deserved it - most speedy deletions are genuine and helpful. However, as an experienced wikipedia editor, I have to say that you are wrong. A few years ago, I built up over 500 mainspace edits and received numerous barnstars. I worked to correct minor errors, source references for articles, rewrite articles to flow better, and even to reduce tensions amongst editors and promote the editing of wikipedia by experts. But in the end, the corrosive and bitter nature of the community drove me away, much as it drives away a lot of people who are both knowledgable in their field and able to write about it. "People seem to have a really hard time with the idea that Wikipedia imposes restrictions in order to make the lives of editors and maintainers easier." This idea is trivial to disprove. Firstly, the majority of articles do not need constant attention, and the number of articles is not directly proportional to the level of vandalism. The majority of editors focus on a few articles, and certain high-interest topics get the most attention. Very few editors actually go and work on random articles, so stating that there is any sort of diversion of energy by the presense of minority interest articles is false. If anything, removing minority interest kicks away the editors that supported those articles, editors who might otherwise have contributed to vandalism patrolling and other more widely helpful activities. Article-creep is an entirely imagined threat that simply does not exist. In fact, a lot of articles nominated for deletion for not being notable have been fairly stable, unvandalised, verifiable, and even maintaned by their creators and related community. No one had an issue with the presense of these articles beyond not being notable enough - as if a purely electronic encyclopedia had some pressing page limit about to be reached. You mention secondary sources, yet wikipedia editors as a whole can't understand how to use primary, secondary and tirtary sources correctly. It is a widely held (and enforced) belief that, when wanting to state that something was said in a book, only a secondary source can be cited. So they would prefer a newspaper's review to the actual book itself, for example. This is, for most cases, simply absurd. Let's consider the deletion process. Officially, Articles For Deletion is about concensus. In practice, it's typically just a vote by the in-croud, most of which never explain their opinion beyond a brief comment. It doesn't matter how much you source an article during this process - it will normally get culled anyhow if they have taken a dislike. Indeed, there is a distinct dislike of trying to improve articles - instead you should just nominate them for deletion (never mind the fact that a quick google search can often give useful references to shore up an article)! I could go on, but I'd be here all night.

fpg 16y ago

Wikipedia is an awful community but it produces a great end product.

the_pwnz 16y ago

Wikipedia is a great product. The community, on the other hand...

gojomo 16y ago

!#@!@^% deletionists are ruining Wikipedia. They’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.

jrockway 16y ago
The second to the wall will be people who think Wikipedia artices are worth killing for.
- gojomo 16y ago
  Don't panic, the revolution will be peaceful and well-read. Perhaps we'll just scare the deletionists off to their own planet with (WP:V!) stories of a giant mutant space goat.

watt 16y ago

The Lady Gaga article was too deleted one time (maybe more) in the beginning (in year 2008). If that's saying something. ( http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Lady_gaga_%28deleted_04_Jun_2008_at_03:00%29 http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Lady_gaga... )