4 ms·

What would be your criteria for the system failing to work? What can go visibly wrong if Wikipedia would cover different subset of obscure topics than it does

What would be your criteria for the system failing to work? What can go visibly wrong if Wikipedia would cover different subset of obscure topics than it does currently? We're not talking about faking facts in well-visited articles, since a) that's not what is being discussed, and b) that has been done anyway, getting into news multiple times.

ghaff 9y ago
To me, "failing to work" would mean not really usable across a wide range of domains. I can find plenty to fault with Wikipedia including the fact that it tilts further in the deletionist direction than would be my personal choice. A failure to include a lot more articles on relatively obscure topics may be a shortcoming but it probably doesn't, at the end of the day, make Wikipedia a lot less useful for the typical person.
- thriftwy 9y ago
  Is Wikipedia useful today? Absolutely. Does deletionism sometimes leads to embarrassing results? As witnessed, it does. Would less deletionism lead to Wikipedia becoming "not really usable across a wide range of domains"? I can't see how it would, neither could you. So I would argue that Wikipedia deletion policy is considerably suboptimal.
  - posterboy 9y ago
    Wikipedia is like a subgraph of the internet. Are there good reasons for certain sites to be blocked on the net? Yes? Should I just be allowed to call you a stupid plucktwit as if I was f'in Linus Torvalds (just for illustration purposes (psyched, I'm really enjoying this(I'm not even making the turn around to illustrate the analogy to Wikipedia any further)))? I guess deletion also serves to keep editors in check, if they don't meet quality standards. It's simply more difficult to delete a deletion-privileged user who has also a number of contributions under the belt. This is similar to police corruption, or shirky's principle.
    - thriftwy 9y ago
      No, there are no good reasons for sites to be blocked on the net. Also no reason for valid articles to be deleted from Wikipedia. I am against corruption and this is awful. Nobody should be reasoning this.
      - posterboy 9y ago
        if you try to censor the censors you can only loose. corolarily, it would be nice if there were no censors.
posterboy 9y ago
Why does HN have a downvote button (for prolific users with karma>500, anyways? (and why doesn't facebook?)).
- thriftwy 9y ago
  I don't know (do you?) , and btw, HN as social community is barely functioning. Just look at all the people with throwaway accounts, and the dang in shining armour.
- syrrim 9y ago
  For sorting comments on usefulness. Of 10 toplevel replies to a post, which should be displayed first? The highest-voted/most-recent one. Also spam.
  - posterboy 9y ago
    spam, is exactly the problem?

ghaff 9y ago

To me, "failing to work" would mean not really usable across a wide range of domains. I can find plenty to fault with Wikipedia including the fact that it tilts further in the deletionist direction than would be my personal choice. A failure to include a lot more articles on relatively obscure topics may be a shortcoming but it probably doesn't, at the end of the day, make Wikipedia a lot less useful for the typical person.

thriftwy 9y ago
Is Wikipedia useful today? Absolutely. Does deletionism sometimes leads to embarrassing results? As witnessed, it does. Would less deletionism lead to Wikipedia becoming "not really usable across a wide range of domains"? I can't see how it would, neither could you. So I would argue that Wikipedia deletion policy is considerably suboptimal.
- posterboy 9y ago
  Wikipedia is like a subgraph of the internet. Are there good reasons for certain sites to be blocked on the net? Yes? Should I just be allowed to call you a stupid plucktwit as if I was f'in Linus Torvalds (just for illustration purposes (psyched, I'm really enjoying this(I'm not even making the turn around to illustrate the analogy to Wikipedia any further)))? I guess deletion also serves to keep editors in check, if they don't meet quality standards. It's simply more difficult to delete a deletion-privileged user who has also a number of contributions under the belt. This is similar to police corruption, or shirky's principle.
  - thriftwy 9y ago
    No, there are no good reasons for sites to be blocked on the net. Also no reason for valid articles to be deleted from Wikipedia. I am against corruption and this is awful. Nobody should be reasoning this.
    - posterboy 9y ago
      if you try to censor the censors you can only loose. corolarily, it would be nice if there were no censors.

posterboy 9y ago

Why does HN have a downvote button (for prolific users with karma>500, anyways? (and why doesn't facebook?)).

thriftwy 9y ago
I don't know (do you?) , and btw, HN as social community is barely functioning. Just look at all the people with throwaway accounts, and the dang in shining armour.
syrrim 9y ago
For sorting comments on usefulness. Of 10 toplevel replies to a post, which should be displayed first? The highest-voted/most-recent one. Also spam.
- posterboy 9y ago
  spam, is exactly the problem?