5 ms·

You have deliberately ignored the most contentious part of the Wikipedia policy regarding articles, which is the "Notability" rule. Why an Internet-based encycl

by gergles 15y ago

You have deliberately ignored the most contentious part of the Wikipedia policy regarding articles, which is the "Notability" rule. Why an Internet-based encyclopedia with no editors, printed version, or quality control feels the need to limit articles to "notable subjects" is beyond me - it isn't like we're going to run out of electrons any time soon. In this particular case, it was quite clear this person existed and that she worked in SEM. There were plenty of sources to back that up. That should be the relevant criterion for whether an article can exist in an Internet-based encyclopedia. There was no reason to delete this article other than "Ha ha, I know the rules of this bizarre system and will throw W:PDQXYZ links at you until you go away".

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
bdonlan 15y ago
Notability is a bit of a misnomer. It's really a way to gauge one extremely important factor: Is it possible to verify the content of this article as correct? Let's look at the general notability guideline (WP:GNG): > If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list. That's it. Simple. Wikipedia wants sources to back up whatever's in the article, it wants significant coverage so it can actually write a decent article using this information, and it wants them to be independent to avoid bias in the source material. Why it ended up being called "Notability", I don't know. It probably should be renamed - but anything that's sufficiently notable tends to fit this general notability criterion, and vice versa, so I guess it's a decent proxy for notability as well.
wpietri 15y ago
I addressed the thing you accuse me of deliberately ignoring in my second paragraph. The resource constraint on Wikipedia isn't electrons; it's the time and attention of conscientious editors. Which yes, Wikipedia has. They also serve as its quality control. Between phone books and public records, there is evidence that most of the people and all of the buildings (and plots of land) in the US exist. Would Wikipedia be better if they all had articles? How about every garage band, after-school club, casual sodality, and beloved pet? I say no. And because of something else that people forever bitch about when it comes to Wikipedia: article quality. Unless there's enough material to make a decent article, I think deletion is the appropriate response. If somebody would like a page on the Internet where they self-document their awesomeness, they can make one on their own site.
njw45 15y ago
Why hasn't anyone taken wikipedia's content and put in it another mediawiki setup run without a deletionist policy?
- wpietri 15y ago
  It is frequently proposed (e.g, this from 2008: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/wackypedia-wikipedia-fork http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/wackypedia-wikipedia-for...) but I don't know of any that are even mildly successful. There are plenty of mirrors and forks, though. Naturally, Wikipedia has a list of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/All http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/All
- ilamont 15y ago
  Not quite what you are looking for, but interesting resources nonetheless: Deletionpedia: http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page See also the Semantic Web/Linked Data resource DBPedia (which tends to have poor uptime, so I am linking the DBPedialite here): http://dbpedialite.org/ http://dbpedialite.org/

by gergles 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

bdonlan 15y ago

Notability is a bit of a misnomer. It's really a way to gauge one extremely important factor: Is it possible to verify the content of this article as correct? Let's look at the general notability guideline (WP:GNG): > If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list. That's it. Simple. Wikipedia wants sources to back up whatever's in the article, it wants significant coverage so it can actually write a decent article using this information, and it wants them to be independent to avoid bias in the source material. Why it ended up being called "Notability", I don't know. It probably should be renamed - but anything that's sufficiently notable tends to fit this general notability criterion, and vice versa, so I guess it's a decent proxy for notability as well.

wpietri 15y ago

I addressed the thing you accuse me of deliberately ignoring in my second paragraph. The resource constraint on Wikipedia isn't electrons; it's the time and attention of conscientious editors. Which yes, Wikipedia has. They also serve as its quality control. Between phone books and public records, there is evidence that most of the people and all of the buildings (and plots of land) in the US exist. Would Wikipedia be better if they all had articles? How about every garage band, after-school club, casual sodality, and beloved pet? I say no. And because of something else that people forever bitch about when it comes to Wikipedia: article quality. Unless there's enough material to make a decent article, I think deletion is the appropriate response. If somebody would like a page on the Internet where they self-document their awesomeness, they can make one on their own site.

njw45 15y ago

Why hasn't anyone taken wikipedia's content and put in it another mediawiki setup run without a deletionist policy?

wpietri 15y ago
It is frequently proposed (e.g, this from 2008: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/wackypedia-wikipedia-fork http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/wackypedia-wikipedia-for...) but I don't know of any that are even mildly successful. There are plenty of mirrors and forks, though. Naturally, Wikipedia has a list of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/All http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/All
ilamont 15y ago
Not quite what you are looking for, but interesting resources nonetheless: Deletionpedia: http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page See also the Semantic Web/Linked Data resource DBPedia (which tends to have poor uptime, so I am linking the DBPedialite here): http://dbpedialite.org/ http://dbpedialite.org/