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I find all of this really hilarious especially considering that a lot of Wikipedia is about trivial stuff like entertainment (films, sports, anime, whatnot), bu

I find all of this really hilarious especially considering that a lot of Wikipedia is about trivial stuff like entertainment (films, sports, anime, whatnot), but whenever someone tries to a document something technical in the wrong way ... NO SOUP FOR YOU! I find it really really rude and disrespectful to just trample over other volunteers' work like this. I'm all for deleting crap, but outright deletion instead of offering suggestions first and then being super-defensive when asked "hey, what's up?" Yeah nah, that doesn't fly. It's like just closing people's PRs on GitHub without offering suggestions on how to fix the patch first with just a single line of "doesn't fit code standards", "doesn't work on Windows", or just a link to a lengthy page. Guess everyone is too busy fighting over capitalisation of movies titles or whether or not the Stanley Kubrick article should have an infobox to offer meaningful suggestions to new users shrug. On Wikipedia, the biggest asshole with the most persistence wins. They've deluded themselves in to thinking this is "meritocracy".

the_af 7y ago
I guess you're an inclusionist then. A lot of people agree with you. (Note some in the deletionist camp want to delete many of the articles about trivial stuff!). I find Wikipedia articles on technical/science subjects tend to be higher quality (with some exceptions of course), those on history tend to be so-so, those about current political matters tend to be outrageously one-sided, and those on pop culture matters are often hilarious -- an article on a subject related to anime can be a lot longer and more detailed than one about real history! Back in the olden days I remember there used to be a Wikipedia article about vampires, written from the point of view of someone in the "vampire community" who wrote about them as if "vampirism" was a "lifestyle", and when it got edited/deleted of course these people threw a fit. But this was a clear case of garbage that doesn't belong in a general encyclopedia. Contributing to Wikipedia, especially in topics where there is controversy, is very frustrating. Like you said, the person with the most time or clout with the online community tends to "win". Having lots of rules of the form WP:<this or that> in order to overwhelm you and make you give up can feel very tiresome. This is why I don't contribute; I simply don't have the time for it. Still find Wikipedia immensely useful though. I'm glad it exists.
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  > I guess you're an inclusionist then. Well, not really. I'm mostly a "treat people's time with respect"-ist. The biggest problem I have is not so much with deleting as such, but rather that for some this seems to be the first tool they use once they see something that they think is not a good fit. Not everyone in the deletionist camp is like that, but there are quite a lot of them and you will run in to these people sooner rather than later. I've saved more than a bit of content by just copy/pasting the deleted content somewhere else (instead of a separate article), or just by Googling for a few extra references.

the_af 7y ago

I guess you're an inclusionist then. A lot of people agree with you. (Note some in the deletionist camp want to delete many of the articles about trivial stuff!). I find Wikipedia articles on technical/science subjects tend to be higher quality (with some exceptions of course), those on history tend to be so-so, those about current political matters tend to be outrageously one-sided, and those on pop culture matters are often hilarious -- an article on a subject related to anime can be a lot longer and more detailed than one about real history! Back in the olden days I remember there used to be a Wikipedia article about vampires, written from the point of view of someone in the "vampire community" who wrote about them as if "vampirism" was a "lifestyle", and when it got edited/deleted of course these people threw a fit. But this was a clear case of garbage that doesn't belong in a general encyclopedia. Contributing to Wikipedia, especially in topics where there is controversy, is very frustrating. Like you said, the person with the most time or clout with the online community tends to "win". Having lots of rules of the form WP:<this or that> in order to overwhelm you and make you give up can feel very tiresome. This is why I don't contribute; I simply don't have the time for it. Still find Wikipedia immensely useful though. I'm glad it exists.

Carpetsmoker 7y ago
> I guess you're an inclusionist then. Well, not really. I'm mostly a "treat people's time with respect"-ist. The biggest problem I have is not so much with deleting as such, but rather that for some this seems to be the first tool they use once they see something that they think is not a good fit. Not everyone in the deletionist camp is like that, but there are quite a lot of them and you will run in to these people sooner rather than later. I've saved more than a bit of content by just copy/pasting the deleted content somewhere else (instead of a separate article), or just by Googling for a few extra references.