8 ms·

Every time a "problem" like this makes the news, the real problem always seems to be overzealous deletionists with their ridiculously strict notability requirem

by kijin 14y ago

Every time a "problem" like this makes the news, the real problem always seems to be overzealous deletionists with their ridiculously strict notability requirement. Gender imbalance might be a problem, but it's not a problem to the same extent as notability-based deletionism is. Notability is an extremely vague standard, a perfect recipe for abuse and selective enforcement. A fair and efficient editorial process should strive to replace vague rules with clearer counterparts whenever possible. Honestly, I cannot think of a good reason to delete any article at all, unless it's obviously fraudulent, marketing-oriented, illegal, or obscene according to a widely accepted definition of obscenity. All of these standards can be applied fairly strictly, and with much less vagueness than notability. - It's not like Wikipedia is short of disk space to store a few million extra text articles. - The argument that it would be too difficult to maintain lots of extra articles is also weak, because not every article needs to be regularly edited, and more articles on niche topics might actually attract more editors. - No, we won't end up with a page for every John Doe and his cat. That's just alarmism. Besides, if something like that ever becomes a problem, a better response would be a prohibition on self-promotion or some other clear guideline, rather than a vague requirement of notability. - If these deletionists are just being OCD and wanting everything to be tidy and clean and under their editorial control, I would say that they need to take a break. In fact, it's possible that people with certain psychological traits self-select for Wikipedia editorship. But the kind of intolerance and self-centered narrow-mindedness that overzealous deletionists exhibit doesn't suit the spirit of a collaborative online project. Keep your OCD to your own home/office and away from public spaces, thank you very much. Right now, I get the impression that it's too easy to flag something for deletion and too difficult to counter the deletionist argument, especially since the deletionists are so familiar with editorial procedures. This inequality needs to change. The burden of proof should be on people who want to remove information from the Web, not on those who want to keep it. Isn't that the same principle that we fought tooth and nail to uphold against the onslaught of SOPA, ACTA, etc?

ShardPhoenix 14y ago
Instead of notability, I'd prefer criteria of verifiability (ie there must be reliable sources) and objectivity (ie no marketing or self-promotion).
- ktizo 14y ago
  A ban on self promotion, if overzealous, has the problem that it can be used to remove articles by the people who have the most expertise in a given subject.
ajuc 14y ago
Or just assign notability number to each article, and allow users to filter by it (perhaps even by default only show articles with notability greater than some bias).
- thatjoshguy 14y ago
  Wikipedia isn't a blog where you just browse through all articles. You have to actively seek out articles on each topic.
  - antidoh 14y ago
    Notwithstanding my other response advocating "pages for everyone!" this would make the random page function less interesting, and a notability filter would be good there. A tag filter (positive and negative) would be cool too.
  - ajuc 14y ago
    This is also argument againist deletionism :)
cabalamat 14y ago
> Every time a "problem" like this makes the news, the real problem always seems to be overzealous deletionists with their ridiculously strict notability requirement. Gender imbalance might be a problem, but it's not a problem to the same extent as notability-based deletionism is. You're right. I've given up creating new articles on Wikipedia, due to the hassle I've had with deletionists.
overcyn 14y ago
> A better response would be a prohibition on self-promotion or some other clear guideline, rather than a vague requirement of notability. Its easy to say "some other clear guideline" but I think your going to run into the exact same problem wikipedia currently has. Can I create a page for my cat? for my friend's cat? the neighborhood cat? a stranger's cat?
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  Go to town. What's hurt by it?
  - overcyn 14y ago
    It loses its "authoritative" nature. It becomes just a list of facts that have citations. Which has its uses of course but I think is much less interesting. Would you trust wikipedia as much if it had a page for your neighbor's dog?
    - waterlesscloud 14y ago
      "Would you trust wikipedia as much if it had a page for your neighbor's dog?" Why wouldn't I? Plus, as long as they maintain the "no original research" rule and the citation requirement, this isn't even a potential problem.
      - overcyn 14y ago
        Because theres no way anyone spent more than 10 minutes fact checking and verifying the page on your neighbor's dog. And if it has your neighbor's dog it has other people's neighbor's dogs. So now every page you have to distinguish between actual curated, "trusted" content and some guy posting about his friend. > Plus, as long as they maintain the "no original research" rule and the citation requirement, this isn't even a potential problem. Thousands of articles are published everyday. Its not difficult to get in one. So and so got an honorable mention at the town's local pet show.
matznerd 14y ago
I completely agree! I updated something on my father's wikipedia page (he founded a city and was a mayor), and even though the article was 5 years old, the change brought the article under review and it was cited for deletion due to notability! I countered everyone of their arguments with sourced articles directly that met the guidelines for notability and they just deleted the messages from their talk pages. They eventually stopped responding and left the article for deletion. Luckily a compassionate editor came along (who happened to be female) and completely defended it and me. edit: I just searched for the page and it is deleted! I am going to get to the bottom of this, this is ridiculous, who do these people think they are? edit 2: When the editor apologized to me, she told me to notify her if the page was ever deleted "If the article gets deleted, please let me know. -- Uzma Gamal". I've sent her a message and will update...This is crazy!
- crististm 14y ago
  For reasons like these, whenever I see "please give me money" Wikipedia commercials, I just say yea....Nope!!
  - matznerd 14y ago
    It's pretty ridiculous that people will go this far out of their way to delete an article that is obviously not spam or anything like that. Seriously, I got pretty emotional having to defend my father's notability to a stranger on the internet who is on a power-trip. At least the woman standing up for me (and my Dad) proves there are at least some good people on there...
    - ktizo 14y ago
      They've gone and deleted the page on Atomic Dielectric Resonance Scanning as well, seemingly on the basis that the page was made by the son of the guy who invented the technology.
    - ShardPhoenix 14y ago
      The fact that you are so emotionally invested in the subject is a good reason why you shouldn't be the one writing or creating the article in the first place.
batgaijin 14y ago
Dude, why do you Jimmy Wales is worth so much? He runs Wikia. What you are proposing is in direct conflict with his personal interests, but you can never win an argument on Wikipedia with that as evidence.
- streptomycin 14y ago
  Jimmy Wales disagrees with the deletionists.
  - batgaijin 14y ago
    Because it's highly publicized...
kinleyd 14y ago
"In fact, it's possible that people with certain psychological traits self-select for Wikipedia editorship." I'd say this is more often the case than not. The few times I've interacted with wikipedia editors I've found our differences to revolve around differences in opinion rather than quantifiable standards. Of course, the opinion of the wiki-nazi carries the day. I agree wikipedia would be better served if it focused its editing on clear cases of unacceptability ("obviously fraudulent, marketing-oriented, illegal, or obscene according to a widely accepted definition of obscenity") plus in improving the language and grammar of the contributions.
Heinleinian 14y ago
Seems to me like they are often not actually out to delete the article, instead they're using the threat of deletion to try and spur the author to clean up an article to wikipedia's standards. Otherwise they'd have to do it themselves. In those cases I think it's actually a pretty reasonable strategy. There's a lot of crap and vanity articles that are thrown up there on any given day.
derleth 14y ago
Everyone's a deletionist about something. Now, watch people 'delete' my comment by downvoting, without giving me any counterargument. > Honestly, I cannot think of a good reason to delete any article at all, unless it's obviously fraudulent, marketing-oriented, illegal, or obscene according to a widely accepted definition of obscenity. None of these are objective, though, meaning this argument will never end. In particular, there is no 'widely accepted definition of obscenity' even within any particular country, let alone the entire English-speaking world (assuming you only care about the English-language Wikipedia). > The argument that it would be too difficult to maintain lots of extra articles is also weak, because not every article needs to be regularly edited, and more articles on niche topics might actually attract more editors. There's the danger of the more out-of-the-way articles becoming spam-traps. The technical solutions would stifle article creation and modification, which seems directly counter to your goals. > No, we won't end up with a page for every John Doe and his cat. Why not? How is not having a page for every John Doe and his cat not simply deletionism? > In fact, it's possible that people with certain psychological traits self-select for Wikipedia editorship. Non sequitur based on psychological projection or other such nonsense. You have no real basis for this statement.
- kijin 14y ago
  > Everyone's a deletionist about something. That's a very broad definition of deletionism, and I'm not interested in arguing about terminology. (Hey, I don't want any wedding gown photos on my hard drive. Am I a deletionist too?) Besides, distinguishing between private desire/preference and public editorial behavior is exactly what I'm trying to advocate here. > None of these are objective, though, meaning this argument will never end. Objectivity is not black and white. Some rules are easier to enforce fairly than others, and some rules are more subjective than others. I'm not saying that Wikipedia should officially adopt any of the rules that I listed off the top of my head, but they were meant as examples that may be less subjective than "notability". The less room a rule for deletion leaves for subjective interpretation, the better. > There's the danger of the more out-of-the-way articles becoming spam-traps. An article that is over 50% spam might be a good candidate for deletion. Compare this rule with "notability". Which one is more objective? Deletionists are patrolling every out-of-the-way article anyway. If they really want to contribute to Wikipedia, they should devote more energy to deleting obvious spam instead of arguing pointlessly about "notability". > Why not? How is not having a page for every John Doe and his cat not simply deletionism? Because not everyone gives a fuck about having his or her own Wikipedia page. Just like not everyone wants to have a public Facebook wall. Lack of interest is a powerful resource that modern societies should learn to leverage to the benefit of all. If the page doesn't get created in the first place, there is nothing to delete. You can call this deletionism too, but then we're back to arguing about terminology. > Non sequitur based on psychological projection or other such nonsense. Maybe it is, but so is your so-called criticism. (Yes, that's tu quoque.)
antidoh 14y ago
"No, we won't end up with a page for every John Doe and his cat." And if we did? It think it would be rather cool for everyone, living or dead, to have his own Wikipedia page. In fact these might have special status as non-deletable. If your family ran a web site about its family, would you deny any member a page, especially if some members already had pages? Now consider our larger family, all us humans that have ever been and ever will be. Besides the many topics about our "family" covered by Wikipedia, some of us have pages specifically about us. Why shouldn't all of us have our own pages? Well before Wikipedia came along, I've wished that each person on Earth could have some way of being recorded for posterity. Some peoples' record will of course be more interesting than others'. But we're all family, even the boring and embarrassing ones.
- kijin 14y ago
  Methinks there already is a website with more or less the same function. It's called Facebook, and from what I've heard, people don't seem to be particularly enthusiastic about recording their lives to be displayed in public in perpetuity.
  - hobin 14y ago
    I'm quite certain this would be one of those things people would be uncomfortable with for a few months - a year, tops. Then they get used to it.
    - hhsa 14y ago
      While I think a lot of people would get used to it (as proven by the amount of people who have all their lives and conversations in public on Facebook), there definitely will still be some who are aware of the consequences. The whole "overshare your whole life publicly on the internet" situation is starting to get out of hand. I don't need to tell HN'ers, but once something is put online, it's there forever, available to any of the 7 billion people alive right now, and it will be available to anybody else that ever lives in the future. Yet still people continue to post content that is immature, embarrassing, risqué, illegal/incriminating, etc. using their full names and identities for the world to see. But a full Wikipedia article for every person? Do you really want anybody on the planet to have your full DOB, birthplace, educational history, employment history, place of residence, pictures, etc. AND then have all of that information for your spouses, parents, children? This is getting too crazy.
vacri 14y ago
While I don't agree with the extent of deletion taht wikipedia sees, I do see a point in avoiding pollution of the search space. There are a lot of celebrity weddings. And frankly, 'affect on fashion industry' really isn't going to be large in the grand scheme of things, just like having an article just for the linux kernel 2.6.29 isn't going to be huge. Make a page called 'notable wedding dresses' and stick it in there. Would any geek but the most insanely hardcore really want a separate page for each minor version of Perl? No, of course not. And that's what the effect of celebrity wedding dresses is like in the world of fashion: a minor dot-point revision of one tool.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Exactly what problems would this "pollution of search space" manifest as?
billswift 14y ago
One big problem with Wikipedia, and the big cause of the ongoing deletionism controversy, is the divergent purposes of outside content creators and wikipedian editors. Most of the outside creators contribute out of direct interest in the subject matter. Too much editing is done for ego-boos and a sense of enpowerment. This isn't always true, of course, but it is true often enough to generate the problem and keep it going.
MaysonL 14y ago
Interesting point in the article that there are many, many Linux distributions with their own articles (reading one of the articles which listed them, it looked like over 200 of them). Are there really 200 notable Linux distros? Edit: Re the wedding dress, my mother was an expert maker of lace, among other accomplishments, and I've seen a fair amount of lace.The lace on Kate Middleton's dress is definitely notable.
- ricree 14y ago
  Would you care to explain why? As someone not familiar with lace or wedding dresses, it's far from obvious why it would be notable. If you wrote up a response explaining, I'd bet that a lot of readers here would find it informative.
  - lancewiggs 14y ago
    And that, of course, is the reason why we need the Wikipedia page on the dress.
rayiner 14y ago
But it's not just overzealous deletion oats. All those Linux distribution pages don't get deleted.
DanBC 14y ago
Some people have personalities that help them create excellently researched, extremely detailed articles. Train spotters, bus spotters, etc, will have articles with a wealth of detail, all of which can be traced back to authoritative real world documentation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_Essex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_Essex) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_London http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_London) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Buses_route_9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Buses_route_9) (The London article has some fascinating facts.) But these articles have been the target of deletionists. People, perhaps rightly, get confused that you can have a list of fictional ducks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_ducks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_ducks) but not lists of Olympic athletes.
jeffdavis 14y ago
It's hard to argue against trying to make the policies more objective and consistent. But the reasoning you are using to get there seems to be pushing wikipedia to be more like google (keep pretty much all of the content and let pagerank sort it out) and less like wikipedia. There's nothing wrong with google, but it already exists, and we don't need another one. Wikipedia is fundamentally based on editing. Deleting pages is just one aspect -- what about removing paragraphs? I think my paragraph is important, so I add it near the top of a page. You think the paragraph is completely useless and want to remove it entirely. What do we do? Remove the paragraph, keep it, or move it down the page? You also don't address a lot of obvious problems, like namespace issues. If the policy is not to delete anything, then there will be more articles and greater ambiguity. I like the fact that, when I use wikipedia, it usually goes to the right place immediately or offers a short list of ways to disambiguate.
briandear 14y ago
I agree. I bet that dress got more page views across the net than the combined lifetime page views of anything regarding Linux distros. I'd say the dress was notable even though I personally couldn't care less about it.
lsc 14y ago
>better response would be a prohibition on self-promotion or some other clear guideline, rather than a vague requirement of notability. Eh, I'm pretty sure that is already prohibited. Or, at the very least, looked down upon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_editing_on_Wikipedia#Jimmy_Wales http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_editing_on... Hm. So it's not okay to edit your own article, but it /is/ okay to pay someone else to do so? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Plain_and_simple_conflict_of_interest_guide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Plain_and_simple_conf... That... seems really weird. Well, not weird, but disappointing.
hackinthebochs 14y ago
>Honestly, I cannot think of a good reason to delete any article at all, unless it's obviously fraudulent... I find this opinion extremely ironic. The whole point of wikipedia was to be an encyclopedia, including all of the baggage that word carries. We don't need another raw dump of information--that's what the internet is for. Wikipedia has a special place in the mind of the world; having an article there gives your cause an air of legitimacy that simply being on the internet doesn't have anymore. And this is exactly why people want their pet causes plastered all over it. If Wikipedia were just another dump of information, no one would care to have their information on it. That is what is ironic about this argument. The only reason people care to be on wikipedia is precisely because of the "deletionists" and editors who work to keep articles on the site notable. Without them, wikipedia simply wouldn't matter.

by kijin 14y ago

ShardPhoenix 14y ago

Instead of notability, I'd prefer criteria of verifiability (ie there must be reliable sources) and objectivity (ie no marketing or self-promotion).

ktizo 14y ago
A ban on self promotion, if overzealous, has the problem that it can be used to remove articles by the people who have the most expertise in a given subject.

ajuc 14y ago

Or just assign notability number to each article, and allow users to filter by it (perhaps even by default only show articles with notability greater than some bias).

thatjoshguy 14y ago
Wikipedia isn't a blog where you just browse through all articles. You have to actively seek out articles on each topic.
- antidoh 14y ago
  Notwithstanding my other response advocating "pages for everyone!" this would make the random page function less interesting, and a notability filter would be good there. A tag filter (positive and negative) would be cool too.
- ajuc 14y ago
  This is also argument againist deletionism :)

cabalamat 14y ago

> Every time a "problem" like this makes the news, the real problem always seems to be overzealous deletionists with their ridiculously strict notability requirement. Gender imbalance might be a problem, but it's not a problem to the same extent as notability-based deletionism is. You're right. I've given up creating new articles on Wikipedia, due to the hassle I've had with deletionists.

overcyn 14y ago

> A better response would be a prohibition on self-promotion or some other clear guideline, rather than a vague requirement of notability. Its easy to say "some other clear guideline" but I think your going to run into the exact same problem wikipedia currently has. Can I create a page for my cat? for my friend's cat? the neighborhood cat? a stranger's cat?

waterlesscloud 14y ago
Go to town. What's hurt by it?
- overcyn 14y ago
  It loses its "authoritative" nature. It becomes just a list of facts that have citations. Which has its uses of course but I think is much less interesting. Would you trust wikipedia as much if it had a page for your neighbor's dog?
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    "Would you trust wikipedia as much if it had a page for your neighbor's dog?" Why wouldn't I? Plus, as long as they maintain the "no original research" rule and the citation requirement, this isn't even a potential problem.
    - overcyn 14y ago
      Because theres no way anyone spent more than 10 minutes fact checking and verifying the page on your neighbor's dog. And if it has your neighbor's dog it has other people's neighbor's dogs. So now every page you have to distinguish between actual curated, "trusted" content and some guy posting about his friend. > Plus, as long as they maintain the "no original research" rule and the citation requirement, this isn't even a potential problem. Thousands of articles are published everyday. Its not difficult to get in one. So and so got an honorable mention at the town's local pet show.

matznerd 14y ago

I completely agree! I updated something on my father's wikipedia page (he founded a city and was a mayor), and even though the article was 5 years old, the change brought the article under review and it was cited for deletion due to notability! I countered everyone of their arguments with sourced articles directly that met the guidelines for notability and they just deleted the messages from their talk pages. They eventually stopped responding and left the article for deletion. Luckily a compassionate editor came along (who happened to be female) and completely defended it and me. edit: I just searched for the page and it is deleted! I am going to get to the bottom of this, this is ridiculous, who do these people think they are? edit 2: When the editor apologized to me, she told me to notify her if the page was ever deleted "If the article gets deleted, please let me know. -- Uzma Gamal". I've sent her a message and will update...This is crazy!

crististm 14y ago
For reasons like these, whenever I see "please give me money" Wikipedia commercials, I just say yea....Nope!!
- matznerd 14y ago
  It's pretty ridiculous that people will go this far out of their way to delete an article that is obviously not spam or anything like that. Seriously, I got pretty emotional having to defend my father's notability to a stranger on the internet who is on a power-trip. At least the woman standing up for me (and my Dad) proves there are at least some good people on there...
  - ktizo 14y ago
    They've gone and deleted the page on Atomic Dielectric Resonance Scanning as well, seemingly on the basis that the page was made by the son of the guy who invented the technology.
  - ShardPhoenix 14y ago
    The fact that you are so emotionally invested in the subject is a good reason why you shouldn't be the one writing or creating the article in the first place.

batgaijin 14y ago

Dude, why do you Jimmy Wales is worth so much? He runs Wikia. What you are proposing is in direct conflict with his personal interests, but you can never win an argument on Wikipedia with that as evidence.

streptomycin 14y ago
Jimmy Wales disagrees with the deletionists.
- batgaijin 14y ago
  Because it's highly publicized...

kinleyd 14y ago

"In fact, it's possible that people with certain psychological traits self-select for Wikipedia editorship." I'd say this is more often the case than not. The few times I've interacted with wikipedia editors I've found our differences to revolve around differences in opinion rather than quantifiable standards. Of course, the opinion of the wiki-nazi carries the day. I agree wikipedia would be better served if it focused its editing on clear cases of unacceptability ("obviously fraudulent, marketing-oriented, illegal, or obscene according to a widely accepted definition of obscenity") plus in improving the language and grammar of the contributions.

Heinleinian 14y ago

Seems to me like they are often not actually out to delete the article, instead they're using the threat of deletion to try and spur the author to clean up an article to wikipedia's standards. Otherwise they'd have to do it themselves. In those cases I think it's actually a pretty reasonable strategy. There's a lot of crap and vanity articles that are thrown up there on any given day.

derleth 14y ago

Everyone's a deletionist about something. Now, watch people 'delete' my comment by downvoting, without giving me any counterargument. > Honestly, I cannot think of a good reason to delete any article at all, unless it's obviously fraudulent, marketing-oriented, illegal, or obscene according to a widely accepted definition of obscenity. None of these are objective, though, meaning this argument will never end. In particular, there is no 'widely accepted definition of obscenity' even within any particular country, let alone the entire English-speaking world (assuming you only care about the English-language Wikipedia). > The argument that it would be too difficult to maintain lots of extra articles is also weak, because not every article needs to be regularly edited, and more articles on niche topics might actually attract more editors. There's the danger of the more out-of-the-way articles becoming spam-traps. The technical solutions would stifle article creation and modification, which seems directly counter to your goals. > No, we won't end up with a page for every John Doe and his cat. Why not? How is not having a page for every John Doe and his cat not simply deletionism? > In fact, it's possible that people with certain psychological traits self-select for Wikipedia editorship. Non sequitur based on psychological projection or other such nonsense. You have no real basis for this statement.

kijin 14y ago
> Everyone's a deletionist about something. That's a very broad definition of deletionism, and I'm not interested in arguing about terminology. (Hey, I don't want any wedding gown photos on my hard drive. Am I a deletionist too?) Besides, distinguishing between private desire/preference and public editorial behavior is exactly what I'm trying to advocate here. > None of these are objective, though, meaning this argument will never end. Objectivity is not black and white. Some rules are easier to enforce fairly than others, and some rules are more subjective than others. I'm not saying that Wikipedia should officially adopt any of the rules that I listed off the top of my head, but they were meant as examples that may be less subjective than "notability". The less room a rule for deletion leaves for subjective interpretation, the better. > There's the danger of the more out-of-the-way articles becoming spam-traps. An article that is over 50% spam might be a good candidate for deletion. Compare this rule with "notability". Which one is more objective? Deletionists are patrolling every out-of-the-way article anyway. If they really want to contribute to Wikipedia, they should devote more energy to deleting obvious spam instead of arguing pointlessly about "notability". > Why not? How is not having a page for every John Doe and his cat not simply deletionism? Because not everyone gives a fuck about having his or her own Wikipedia page. Just like not everyone wants to have a public Facebook wall. Lack of interest is a powerful resource that modern societies should learn to leverage to the benefit of all. If the page doesn't get created in the first place, there is nothing to delete. You can call this deletionism too, but then we're back to arguing about terminology. > Non sequitur based on psychological projection or other such nonsense. Maybe it is, but so is your so-called criticism. (Yes, that's tu quoque.)

antidoh 14y ago

"No, we won't end up with a page for every John Doe and his cat." And if we did? It think it would be rather cool for everyone, living or dead, to have his own Wikipedia page. In fact these might have special status as non-deletable. If your family ran a web site about its family, would you deny any member a page, especially if some members already had pages? Now consider our larger family, all us humans that have ever been and ever will be. Besides the many topics about our "family" covered by Wikipedia, some of us have pages specifically about us. Why shouldn't all of us have our own pages? Well before Wikipedia came along, I've wished that each person on Earth could have some way of being recorded for posterity. Some peoples' record will of course be more interesting than others'. But we're all family, even the boring and embarrassing ones.

kijin 14y ago
Methinks there already is a website with more or less the same function. It's called Facebook, and from what I've heard, people don't seem to be particularly enthusiastic about recording their lives to be displayed in public in perpetuity.
- hobin 14y ago
  I'm quite certain this would be one of those things people would be uncomfortable with for a few months - a year, tops. Then they get used to it.
  - hhsa 14y ago
    While I think a lot of people would get used to it (as proven by the amount of people who have all their lives and conversations in public on Facebook), there definitely will still be some who are aware of the consequences. The whole "overshare your whole life publicly on the internet" situation is starting to get out of hand. I don't need to tell HN'ers, but once something is put online, it's there forever, available to any of the 7 billion people alive right now, and it will be available to anybody else that ever lives in the future. Yet still people continue to post content that is immature, embarrassing, risqué, illegal/incriminating, etc. using their full names and identities for the world to see. But a full Wikipedia article for every person? Do you really want anybody on the planet to have your full DOB, birthplace, educational history, employment history, place of residence, pictures, etc. AND then have all of that information for your spouses, parents, children? This is getting too crazy.

vacri 14y ago

While I don't agree with the extent of deletion taht wikipedia sees, I do see a point in avoiding pollution of the search space. There are a lot of celebrity weddings. And frankly, 'affect on fashion industry' really isn't going to be large in the grand scheme of things, just like having an article just for the linux kernel 2.6.29 isn't going to be huge. Make a page called 'notable wedding dresses' and stick it in there. Would any geek but the most insanely hardcore really want a separate page for each minor version of Perl? No, of course not. And that's what the effect of celebrity wedding dresses is like in the world of fashion: a minor dot-point revision of one tool.

jlgreco 14y ago
Exactly what problems would this "pollution of search space" manifest as?

billswift 14y ago

One big problem with Wikipedia, and the big cause of the ongoing deletionism controversy, is the divergent purposes of outside content creators and wikipedian editors. Most of the outside creators contribute out of direct interest in the subject matter. Too much editing is done for ego-boos and a sense of enpowerment. This isn't always true, of course, but it is true often enough to generate the problem and keep it going.

MaysonL 14y ago

Interesting point in the article that there are many, many Linux distributions with their own articles (reading one of the articles which listed them, it looked like over 200 of them). Are there really 200 notable Linux distros? Edit: Re the wedding dress, my mother was an expert maker of lace, among other accomplishments, and I've seen a fair amount of lace.The lace on Kate Middleton's dress is definitely notable.

ricree 14y ago
Would you care to explain why? As someone not familiar with lace or wedding dresses, it's far from obvious why it would be notable. If you wrote up a response explaining, I'd bet that a lot of readers here would find it informative.
- lancewiggs 14y ago
  And that, of course, is the reason why we need the Wikipedia page on the dress.

rayiner 14y ago

But it's not just overzealous deletion oats. All those Linux distribution pages don't get deleted.

DanBC 14y ago

Some people have personalities that help them create excellently researched, extremely detailed articles. Train spotters, bus spotters, etc, will have articles with a wealth of detail, all of which can be traced back to authoritative real world documentation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_Essex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_Essex) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_London http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bus_routes_in_London) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Buses_route_9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Buses_route_9) (The London article has some fascinating facts.) But these articles have been the target of deletionists. People, perhaps rightly, get confused that you can have a list of fictional ducks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_ducks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_ducks) but not lists of Olympic athletes.

jeffdavis 14y ago

It's hard to argue against trying to make the policies more objective and consistent. But the reasoning you are using to get there seems to be pushing wikipedia to be more like google (keep pretty much all of the content and let pagerank sort it out) and less like wikipedia. There's nothing wrong with google, but it already exists, and we don't need another one. Wikipedia is fundamentally based on editing. Deleting pages is just one aspect -- what about removing paragraphs? I think my paragraph is important, so I add it near the top of a page. You think the paragraph is completely useless and want to remove it entirely. What do we do? Remove the paragraph, keep it, or move it down the page? You also don't address a lot of obvious problems, like namespace issues. If the policy is not to delete anything, then there will be more articles and greater ambiguity. I like the fact that, when I use wikipedia, it usually goes to the right place immediately or offers a short list of ways to disambiguate.

briandear 14y ago

I agree. I bet that dress got more page views across the net than the combined lifetime page views of anything regarding Linux distros. I'd say the dress was notable even though I personally couldn't care less about it.

lsc 14y ago

>better response would be a prohibition on self-promotion or some other clear guideline, rather than a vague requirement of notability. Eh, I'm pretty sure that is already prohibited. Or, at the very least, looked down upon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_editing_on_Wikipedia#Jimmy_Wales http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest_editing_on... Hm. So it's not okay to edit your own article, but it /is/ okay to pay someone else to do so? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Plain_and_simple_conflict_of_interest_guide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Plain_and_simple_conf... That... seems really weird. Well, not weird, but disappointing.

hackinthebochs 14y ago

>Honestly, I cannot think of a good reason to delete any article at all, unless it's obviously fraudulent... I find this opinion extremely ironic. The whole point of wikipedia was to be an encyclopedia, including all of the baggage that word carries. We don't need another raw dump of information--that's what the internet is for. Wikipedia has a special place in the mind of the world; having an article there gives your cause an air of legitimacy that simply being on the internet doesn't have anymore. And this is exactly why people want their pet causes plastered all over it. If Wikipedia were just another dump of information, no one would care to have their information on it. That is what is ironic about this argument. The only reason people care to be on wikipedia is precisely because of the "deletionists" and editors who work to keep articles on the site notable. Without them, wikipedia simply wouldn't matter.