6 ms·

For as much as I love Wikipedia as it is, I yearn for a return to the days of their old inclusionist[1] policy. [1] https://gwern.net/inclusionism https://gwer

For as much as I love Wikipedia as it is, I yearn for a return to the days of their old inclusionist[1] policy. [1] https://gwern.net/inclusionism https://gwern.net/inclusionism

qingcharles 3y ago
I came across a huge article on some magazine marked for deletion the other day. The amount of work that had gone into the article was extensive, and it made me sad. While my little article about a small pile of sand in the middle of nowhere has ironically been translated into nine languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qeqertaq_Avannarleq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qeqertaq_Avannarleq
- xhkkffbf 3y ago
  I agree. Why throw away perfectly good work out of some bizarre idea about "notability?" What's notable now is now what will be notable in the future. Stop the destruction! End this dumb rule and make Wikipedia truly open to all.
  - CYR1X 3y ago
    Probably because you exploit this. Do this a bunch in some what that leans towards whatever your agenda is and eventually one of those articles will get a bunch of hits and attention before anyone considers revising it.
    - username3 3y ago
      Wikipedia should allow more articles to have sections for viewpoints from different biases and agendas.
  - flenserboy 3y ago
    "Notability" is a weapon used by many editors to get rid of entries that go against their views. I've seen it used to keep off pages for highly-selling authors who hold contrary views to certain viewpoints even though they are better-known and more highly cited than authors who advocate to those certain viewpoints who get to keep their pages. No one should be able to gatekeep in this way, and there should not be anyone who can claim a page and make it theirs, keeping off any and all edits or challenges by others.
    - NooneAtAll3 3y ago
      I've seen it getting used against... games in particular language Same game in a one language can be extremely notable and well known to everyone, while in other it'd get deleted without a trace. Sometimes it feels like "racism" based on countries (countrism?)
      - teachrdan 3y ago
        > Sometimes it feels like "racism" based on countries (countrism?) I'd call it national chauvinism.
        permo-w 3y ago
        jingoism
      - dfxm12 3y ago
        A lot of languages span several races or countries.
  - contravariant 3y ago
    I wish there was an easier way to find deleted articles. You can see all versions of an article but if it's gone there seems to be no way to see anything.
    - FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
      There used to be deletionpedia.org but it has gone dormant (again)
    - duskwuff 3y ago
      This is by design. A lot of articles, especially recently created ones, get deleted because they consist of material which is legally problematic (e.g. text which is a copyright violation, which is libelous, which violates someone's privacy, etc).
      - mardifoufs 3y ago
        Doesn't that use a different deletion mechanism? Afaik you can still see "normally" deleted edits and articles if you have the revision link, but those who have been deleted for legal reasons are wiped from history and their revision or edit link are blanked out
        duskwuff 3y ago
        > Doesn't that use a different deletion mechanism? Generally not. There is a separate process called "oversight" [1] which behaves the way you're describing, but it can only be invoked by a very small number of privileged users, and is only used in extreme cases. [1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight_policy https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight_policy
  - theonlybutlet 3y ago
    As far as I understand, this idea of notability also adversely impacts science publishing, it's not published by reputable journals unless it's notable, which skews incentives and also means there's probably some useful information out there left to someone else to rediscover.
  - hk__2 3y ago
    Nothing is destroyed; the person who wrote the article can ask an admin to get its text back so they can publish it elsewhere. I don’t get this "Wikipedia should host everything" mentality: if you disagree with the rules, just publish your work somewhere else. The number of articles need to be manageable, so rules are needed.
    - permo-w 3y ago
      surely if an article exists and is shown to be being poorly maintained, then perhaps it's worthy of dormancy or maybe deletion. why do it pre-emptively?
doix 3y ago
It's interesting, I always theoretically appreciated that wikipedia could be inaccurate and that the strict requirements could be a bad thing, but I never saw it in action. Until I was in Tunisia and wanted to visit all the star wars film sites that I could. There's a place called Ksar Ouled Soltane [0] and I couldn't quite figure out if it was a film site or not. The locals assured me it was, but there were conflicting reports online. I saw that it was listed on Wikipedia, but when I went through the history, I saw that someone tried to remove it [1]. Unfortunately their removal was reverted and their source [2] wasn't considered good enough. That said, I read their article and I'm much more inclined to believe them than the wikipedia editors. It was the first time I ever encountered something like this in the wild. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksar_Ouled_Soltane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksar_Ouled_Soltane [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dbavandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dbavandy [2] https://galaxytours.com/research/ksar-ouled-soltane-debunking-the-myth/ https://galaxytours.com/research/ksar-ouled-soltane-debunkin...
- irrational 3y ago
  I have to wonder if Billinghurst even looked at the galaxytours website. I suspect not. It is telling that he never responded to Davin Dbavandy question about why it is not a reliable source.
- epolanski 3y ago
  I have followed Ukraine-Russia related articles for a decade and saw thousands of articles changed over that time span. One thing that always stood out to me was how till 2014 you could find many references on wikipedia to pre-2014 attempts from Crimea to secede from Ukraine. "Crimea" (quoted, as it may refer to different groups/leaderships in Crimea) tried to split from Ukraine twice already during Soviet times. But this whole thing got edited away in years across dozens of articles. I think there's a significant nuance between the two narratives.
ghaff 3y ago
I'm much more inclusionist than deletionist. And find there's a lot of both randomness and irony in what qualifies as notable, especially given that notability can be a very local thing. On the other hand, it's probably fair that not everyone who has ever had their name in print or has a website should have a Wikipedia entry.
- bombcar 3y ago
  They need something like "wikipedia adjacent" to allow for inclusionism without authority - it's not like they're limited by the size of a bound encyclopedia.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Wikipedia is an excellent example of something that would benefit from an upstream, less-authoritative, more-comprehensive source. Unfortunately, it seems so ossified that that work can only be done within Wikipedia (notable article, standards, etc). A far more reasonable approach would have been to have CommonPedia... and then regularly pull qualifying information into Wikipedia.
  - hk__2 3y ago
    > They need something like "wikipedia adjacent" to allow for inclusionism without authority This is called "The Web". You’re free to write whatever you want, it’s just not on Wikipedia. > it's not like they're limited by the size of a bound encyclopedia. No, but articles still require maintainance, so it’s false to say that just because this is "in the cloud" you can have an infinite number of articles.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  The ugliest edit war I've seen involved a less-known adult film star. Her legal name had appeared in some public court filings, and some user had added it to her Wikipedia page with the reference. Someone else (purportedly one of her co-stars) had requested removal. A Wikipedia editor then got involved, and refused to budge from the position the original actress was notable enough to merit inclusion of her legal name. Cue months of back-and-forth deletions and reversions. Finally, I think a year later, someone quietly edited the legal name out and it stuck. Sometimes people with a little power are the greatest assholes. Probably because they sought the little power.
skitter 3y ago
Me likewise – it makes me happy that there's an 800 word article about a pond that used to exist for less than 200 years in my town.
twic 3y ago
I genuinely believe that deletionism is rooted in mental disorder. It comes from a similar place as neurotic clean-freak OCD. Deletionists should be given ECT, not admin accounts.
placesalt 3y ago
I still miss the Trivia sections.

For as much as I love Wikipedia as it is, I yearn for a return to the days of their old inclusionist[1] policy. [1] https://gwern.net/inclusionism https://gwern.net/inclusionism

qingcharles 3y ago

I came across a huge article on some magazine marked for deletion the other day. The amount of work that had gone into the article was extensive, and it made me sad. While my little article about a small pile of sand in the middle of nowhere has ironically been translated into nine languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qeqertaq_Avannarleq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qeqertaq_Avannarleq

xhkkffbf 3y ago
I agree. Why throw away perfectly good work out of some bizarre idea about "notability?" What's notable now is now what will be notable in the future. Stop the destruction! End this dumb rule and make Wikipedia truly open to all.
- CYR1X 3y ago
  Probably because you exploit this. Do this a bunch in some what that leans towards whatever your agenda is and eventually one of those articles will get a bunch of hits and attention before anyone considers revising it.
  - username3 3y ago
    Wikipedia should allow more articles to have sections for viewpoints from different biases and agendas.
- flenserboy 3y ago
  "Notability" is a weapon used by many editors to get rid of entries that go against their views. I've seen it used to keep off pages for highly-selling authors who hold contrary views to certain viewpoints even though they are better-known and more highly cited than authors who advocate to those certain viewpoints who get to keep their pages. No one should be able to gatekeep in this way, and there should not be anyone who can claim a page and make it theirs, keeping off any and all edits or challenges by others.
  - NooneAtAll3 3y ago
    I've seen it getting used against... games in particular language Same game in a one language can be extremely notable and well known to everyone, while in other it'd get deleted without a trace. Sometimes it feels like "racism" based on countries (countrism?)
    - teachrdan 3y ago
      > Sometimes it feels like "racism" based on countries (countrism?) I'd call it national chauvinism.
      - permo-w 3y ago
        jingoism
    - dfxm12 3y ago
      A lot of languages span several races or countries.
- contravariant 3y ago
  I wish there was an easier way to find deleted articles. You can see all versions of an article but if it's gone there seems to be no way to see anything.
  - FuriouslyAdrift 3y ago
    There used to be deletionpedia.org but it has gone dormant (again)
  - duskwuff 3y ago
    This is by design. A lot of articles, especially recently created ones, get deleted because they consist of material which is legally problematic (e.g. text which is a copyright violation, which is libelous, which violates someone's privacy, etc).
    - mardifoufs 3y ago
      Doesn't that use a different deletion mechanism? Afaik you can still see "normally" deleted edits and articles if you have the revision link, but those who have been deleted for legal reasons are wiped from history and their revision or edit link are blanked out
      - duskwuff 3y ago
        > Doesn't that use a different deletion mechanism? Generally not. There is a separate process called "oversight" [1] which behaves the way you're describing, but it can only be invoked by a very small number of privileged users, and is only used in extreme cases. [1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight_policy https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Oversight_policy
- theonlybutlet 3y ago
  As far as I understand, this idea of notability also adversely impacts science publishing, it's not published by reputable journals unless it's notable, which skews incentives and also means there's probably some useful information out there left to someone else to rediscover.
- hk__2 3y ago
  Nothing is destroyed; the person who wrote the article can ask an admin to get its text back so they can publish it elsewhere. I don’t get this "Wikipedia should host everything" mentality: if you disagree with the rules, just publish your work somewhere else. The number of articles need to be manageable, so rules are needed.
  - permo-w 3y ago
    surely if an article exists and is shown to be being poorly maintained, then perhaps it's worthy of dormancy or maybe deletion. why do it pre-emptively?

doix 3y ago

It's interesting, I always theoretically appreciated that wikipedia could be inaccurate and that the strict requirements could be a bad thing, but I never saw it in action. Until I was in Tunisia and wanted to visit all the star wars film sites that I could. There's a place called Ksar Ouled Soltane [0] and I couldn't quite figure out if it was a film site or not. The locals assured me it was, but there were conflicting reports online. I saw that it was listed on Wikipedia, but when I went through the history, I saw that someone tried to remove it [1]. Unfortunately their removal was reverted and their source [2] wasn't considered good enough. That said, I read their article and I'm much more inclined to believe them than the wikipedia editors. It was the first time I ever encountered something like this in the wild. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksar_Ouled_Soltane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksar_Ouled_Soltane [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dbavandy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Dbavandy [2] https://galaxytours.com/research/ksar-ouled-soltane-debunking-the-myth/ https://galaxytours.com/research/ksar-ouled-soltane-debunkin...

irrational 3y ago
I have to wonder if Billinghurst even looked at the galaxytours website. I suspect not. It is telling that he never responded to Davin Dbavandy question about why it is not a reliable source.
epolanski 3y ago
I have followed Ukraine-Russia related articles for a decade and saw thousands of articles changed over that time span. One thing that always stood out to me was how till 2014 you could find many references on wikipedia to pre-2014 attempts from Crimea to secede from Ukraine. "Crimea" (quoted, as it may refer to different groups/leaderships in Crimea) tried to split from Ukraine twice already during Soviet times. But this whole thing got edited away in years across dozens of articles. I think there's a significant nuance between the two narratives.

ghaff 3y ago

I'm much more inclusionist than deletionist. And find there's a lot of both randomness and irony in what qualifies as notable, especially given that notability can be a very local thing. On the other hand, it's probably fair that not everyone who has ever had their name in print or has a website should have a Wikipedia entry.

bombcar 3y ago
They need something like "wikipedia adjacent" to allow for inclusionism without authority - it's not like they're limited by the size of a bound encyclopedia.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Wikipedia is an excellent example of something that would benefit from an upstream, less-authoritative, more-comprehensive source. Unfortunately, it seems so ossified that that work can only be done within Wikipedia (notable article, standards, etc). A far more reasonable approach would have been to have CommonPedia... and then regularly pull qualifying information into Wikipedia.
- hk__2 3y ago
  > They need something like "wikipedia adjacent" to allow for inclusionism without authority This is called "The Web". You’re free to write whatever you want, it’s just not on Wikipedia. > it's not like they're limited by the size of a bound encyclopedia. No, but articles still require maintainance, so it’s false to say that just because this is "in the cloud" you can have an infinite number of articles.
ethbr1 3y ago
The ugliest edit war I've seen involved a less-known adult film star. Her legal name had appeared in some public court filings, and some user had added it to her Wikipedia page with the reference. Someone else (purportedly one of her co-stars) had requested removal. A Wikipedia editor then got involved, and refused to budge from the position the original actress was notable enough to merit inclusion of her legal name. Cue months of back-and-forth deletions and reversions. Finally, I think a year later, someone quietly edited the legal name out and it stuck. Sometimes people with a little power are the greatest assholes. Probably because they sought the little power.

skitter 3y ago

Me likewise – it makes me happy that there's an 800 word article about a pond that used to exist for less than 200 years in my town.

twic 3y ago

I genuinely believe that deletionism is rooted in mental disorder. It comes from a similar place as neurotic clean-freak OCD. Deletionists should be given ECT, not admin accounts.

placesalt 3y ago

I still miss the Trivia sections.