4 ms·

The German Wikipedia would be twice as big if mods weren’t obsessed with some made up criteria of relevance.

by brodo 7y ago

linksnapzz 7y ago
Wait, the Germans are being picky and pedantic? Way to travel in unfortunate national stereotypes...:-)
- markdown 7y ago
  All articles that fail to meet criteria are to be purged.
FalconSensei 7y ago
That sad. In the end, all this would (if not already) make then just go for the English version. I already do this (I'm Brazilian) as the Portuguese version is nowhere near the international (English) version in terms of completeness and being up-to-date. BTW, do you have a link for their terms on "relevance"?
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  The English version isn't particularly free. I attempted to add a page about a file format that is fairly well used but doesn't have a huge amount of information online about it. The only real source is a zip file from a companies website which contains a pdf with the file spec and some example programs. Unfortunately the editors decided that due to the lack of referencable sources, they would rather no article exist at all.
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    This bullshit policy drives me mad. I will start donating regularly once it's cancelled. Not sooner, nor later.
    - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
      I understand it for some cases where the mods just need to stop people making up random crap on topics that don't exist or can't be verified. But in this case a single reference is more than enough to write the whole page because the spec is literally the only source of truth on the topic. Unfortunately I think the mods may be too passionate about "protecting the integrity of wikipedia" that they let legitimate content be deleted. It also doesn't help that the wikipedia UI for disputes and edits is really confusing and I had a hard time trying to work out what was going on or how I communicate to this moderator. The whole system is designed for power users only.
      - scandinavegan 7y ago
        It's important to note that there are not only "the mods", but two opposing factions in Wikipedia: the Deletionists and the Inclusionists. [1] I too agree that we don't need articles on someone's cat, but I've had articles deleted as not notable on indie web comics and indie role-playing games with hundreds or thousands of readers or copies sold. I thought that the fact that the RPG was published and publicly available, and was being discussed in RPG forums would make it notable enough, especially when it was mentioned as an inspiration for rules in more traditional RPGs. But since they hadn't been mentioned in any published articles they were deleted and there was no real way for me to fight it. I had added stuff like the list of contributors, publishing year, and overview of the rules and setting, with no personal discussion of the game. The result was that I stopped trying to improve Wikipedia, because I don't have the time or interest to fight people with an infinite amount of time that deletes my additions. My main contribution to Wikipedia wouldn't have been on the articles on Barack Obama or World War II anyway, as they already have people who are experts that add information. I could have brought information on my specialized topics of interest, but realized that they would all seem non-notable to someone who's not interested in the same thing and would be deleted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_i...
  - Jap2-0 7y ago
    Out of curiosity, what file format?
    - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
      .fit Its stores gps logs along with sensor readings for things like power/heart rate/etc. Its very commonly used in cycling computers.
      - zozbot234 7y ago
        Fileformats.info is a thing. You could try and add it to their wiki, then you would have a "reliable" source for the English Wikpedia. Specialized websites are usually considered "reliable" for that purpose.
        Polylactic_acid 7y ago
        I actually did reference a user created page on the OSM wiki about the format which matched what the official docs said. But was told that wikis are not a referencable source for wikipedia.
- martin_a 7y ago
  > BTW, do you have a link for their terms on "relevance"? The German ones? You can find them here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Relevanzkriterien https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Relevanzkriterien Some might make sense, some are rather arbitrary and depend on the person that is going to delete your post. I tried getting into Wikipedia and supporting the work, but the atmosphere in Germany is rather toxic. Let it die and look at the English version.
  - FalconSensei 7y ago
    Thank you very much! That's what I was curious about. But you are absolutely right, it's just better to stick with the English version.

The German Wikipedia would be twice as big if mods weren’t obsessed with some made up criteria of relevance.

by brodo 7y ago

The German Wikipedia would be twice as big if mods weren’t obsessed with some made up criteria of relevance.

linksnapzz 7y ago

Wait, the Germans are being picky and pedantic? Way to travel in unfortunate national stereotypes...:-)

markdown 7y ago
All articles that fail to meet criteria are to be purged.

FalconSensei 7y ago

That sad. In the end, all this would (if not already) make then just go for the English version. I already do this (I'm Brazilian) as the Portuguese version is nowhere near the international (English) version in terms of completeness and being up-to-date. BTW, do you have a link for their terms on "relevance"?

Polylactic_acid 7y ago
The English version isn't particularly free. I attempted to add a page about a file format that is fairly well used but doesn't have a huge amount of information online about it. The only real source is a zip file from a companies website which contains a pdf with the file spec and some example programs. Unfortunately the editors decided that due to the lack of referencable sources, they would rather no article exist at all.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  This bullshit policy drives me mad. I will start donating regularly once it's cancelled. Not sooner, nor later.
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    I understand it for some cases where the mods just need to stop people making up random crap on topics that don't exist or can't be verified. But in this case a single reference is more than enough to write the whole page because the spec is literally the only source of truth on the topic. Unfortunately I think the mods may be too passionate about "protecting the integrity of wikipedia" that they let legitimate content be deleted. It also doesn't help that the wikipedia UI for disputes and edits is really confusing and I had a hard time trying to work out what was going on or how I communicate to this moderator. The whole system is designed for power users only.
    - scandinavegan 7y ago
      It's important to note that there are not only "the mods", but two opposing factions in Wikipedia: the Deletionists and the Inclusionists. [1] I too agree that we don't need articles on someone's cat, but I've had articles deleted as not notable on indie web comics and indie role-playing games with hundreds or thousands of readers or copies sold. I thought that the fact that the RPG was published and publicly available, and was being discussed in RPG forums would make it notable enough, especially when it was mentioned as an inspiration for rules in more traditional RPGs. But since they hadn't been mentioned in any published articles they were deleted and there was no real way for me to fight it. I had added stuff like the list of contributors, publishing year, and overview of the rules and setting, with no personal discussion of the game. The result was that I stopped trying to improve Wikipedia, because I don't have the time or interest to fight people with an infinite amount of time that deletes my additions. My main contribution to Wikipedia wouldn't have been on the articles on Barack Obama or World War II anyway, as they already have people who are experts that add information. I could have brought information on my specialized topics of interest, but realized that they would all seem non-notable to someone who's not interested in the same thing and would be deleted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_i...
- Jap2-0 7y ago
  Out of curiosity, what file format?
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    .fit Its stores gps logs along with sensor readings for things like power/heart rate/etc. Its very commonly used in cycling computers.
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      Fileformats.info is a thing. You could try and add it to their wiki, then you would have a "reliable" source for the English Wikpedia. Specialized websites are usually considered "reliable" for that purpose.
      - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
        I actually did reference a user created page on the OSM wiki about the format which matched what the official docs said. But was told that wikis are not a referencable source for wikipedia.
martin_a 7y ago
> BTW, do you have a link for their terms on "relevance"? The German ones? You can find them here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Relevanzkriterien https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Relevanzkriterien Some might make sense, some are rather arbitrary and depend on the person that is going to delete your post. I tried getting into Wikipedia and supporting the work, but the atmosphere in Germany is rather toxic. Let it die and look at the English version.
- FalconSensei 7y ago
  Thank you very much! That's what I was curious about. But you are absolutely right, it's just better to stick with the English version.