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Why care to participate if contributions can be deleted at any moment? In WikiMedia's "Movement Strategic Plan Summary" they have an interesting graph to show.

Why care to participate if contributions can be deleted at any moment? In WikiMedia's "Movement Strategic Plan Summary" they have an interesting graph to show. http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary/Increase_Participation http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strate... So something must have happend around '07. What was it?

jacques_chester 14y ago
There are a number of things at play. 1. The rise of deletionism. 2. The tendency for many pages to attract zealous guardians. I've had spelling errors immediately backed out. I expect that 99.9% of potential contributors quit at this point and never return. 3. Diminishing subjects to cover. All the "major" ones are done, all that's left are the billions of pieces of harmless trivia that deletionists decide, apparently at random, to do away with. Note also that half the editors are under 22. This is probably why you can find vast articles on Pokemon and deletionists go around flushing articles on anything that happened before 1990.
- gwern 14y ago
  > Note also that half the editors are under 22. This is probably why you can find vast articles on Pokemon and deletionists go around flushing articles on anything that happened before 1990. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Vast articles? No, the Pokemon articles were purged pretty early on; look at lists like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_characters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_characters or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_%28202%E2%80%93251%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_%28202%E2... which devote a few lines to main characters or major pokemon, and just compare some with their respective entries in Bulbapedia (where the Pokemon Wikipedia editors ultimately fled to escape the deletionists, much like the Star Wars editors earlier fled en masse to Wookieepedia). Even the Pikachu article has been eviscerated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikachu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikachu (Hope you enjoy a list of awards and mentions... It's 'out of universe' material donchaknow)
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    Good point, they reduced it to only thousands upon thousands of words enumerating every single character that has ever appeared. Phew, what a useful compromise. Good work team. High fives all round.
    - Dylan16807 14y ago
      Of all the things to complain about, you're going after the fact that wikipedia has 15 printed pages about important characters in a cartoon with over 750 episodes? This is a list of important, plot-affecting characters; you're just failing to appreciate the sheer scale. At the very least complain about the species list if you want something ill-fitting for an encyclopedia.
      - jacques_chester 14y ago
        The point is that "notability" seems to be a 1-to-1 proxy for "the popular culture and nostalgic recollections of < 25 year olds". Which is ... daft.
        Dylan16807 14y ago
        That's a fine point but a bad example. We're looking at a couple dozen words about characters per hour of footage.
  - gojomo 14y ago
    In the case of fictional universes, Wikipedia's deletionism is Wikia's business model.
gwern 14y ago
2007 was around the Seigenthaler incident and the kneejerk panic reactions by WMF people and administrators, like Wales unilaterally turning off anonymous page creation and lying to everyone about it being an experiment; I've personally always dated the rise of the deletionists and shifts of burden of proof to around this period.

jacques_chester 14y ago

There are a number of things at play. 1. The rise of deletionism. 2. The tendency for many pages to attract zealous guardians. I've had spelling errors immediately backed out. I expect that 99.9% of potential contributors quit at this point and never return. 3. Diminishing subjects to cover. All the "major" ones are done, all that's left are the billions of pieces of harmless trivia that deletionists decide, apparently at random, to do away with. Note also that half the editors are under 22. This is probably why you can find vast articles on Pokemon and deletionists go around flushing articles on anything that happened before 1990.

gwern 14y ago
> Note also that half the editors are under 22. This is probably why you can find vast articles on Pokemon and deletionists go around flushing articles on anything that happened before 1990. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Vast articles? No, the Pokemon articles were purged pretty early on; look at lists like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_characters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_characters or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_%28202%E2%80%93251%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_%28202%E2... which devote a few lines to main characters or major pokemon, and just compare some with their respective entries in Bulbapedia (where the Pokemon Wikipedia editors ultimately fled to escape the deletionists, much like the Star Wars editors earlier fled en masse to Wookieepedia). Even the Pikachu article has been eviscerated: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikachu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikachu (Hope you enjoy a list of awards and mentions... It's 'out of universe' material donchaknow)
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  Good point, they reduced it to only thousands upon thousands of words enumerating every single character that has ever appeared. Phew, what a useful compromise. Good work team. High fives all round.
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    Of all the things to complain about, you're going after the fact that wikipedia has 15 printed pages about important characters in a cartoon with over 750 episodes? This is a list of important, plot-affecting characters; you're just failing to appreciate the sheer scale. At the very least complain about the species list if you want something ill-fitting for an encyclopedia.
    - jacques_chester 14y ago
      The point is that "notability" seems to be a 1-to-1 proxy for "the popular culture and nostalgic recollections of < 25 year olds". Which is ... daft.
      - Dylan16807 14y ago
        That's a fine point but a bad example. We're looking at a couple dozen words about characters per hour of footage.
- gojomo 14y ago
  In the case of fictional universes, Wikipedia's deletionism is Wikia's business model.

gwern 14y ago

2007 was around the Seigenthaler incident and the kneejerk panic reactions by WMF people and administrators, like Wales unilaterally turning off anonymous page creation and lying to everyone about it being an experiment; I've personally always dated the rise of the deletionists and shifts of burden of proof to around this period.