4 ms·

Wikiid: Can Wikipedia make a Wikipedia page notable enough to avoid deletion?

40 points by unalone 18y ago

critic 18y ago
> It can be looked at both as metahumor and as a piece of postmodern art. I think this is more of a recursive humor than metahumor.
- unalone 18y ago
  True, false classification. (Metahumor would be humor about humor.) Well, it's a wiki page, so anybody can edit it and fix stuff like that.
  - donaq 18y ago
    Well, according to wikipedia, in which metahumor redirects to meta-joke: Meta-joke refers to three somewhat different, but related categories: "self-referential jokes", "jokes about jokes" (see meta-) also known as metahumor, and "joke templates". Recursive humor would be a subclass of self-referential jokes, going by the definition for self-referential jokes as given by (what else?) Wikipedia. This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which the joke itself, or rather a familiar class of jokes, is part of the joke.
nicara 18y ago
There should be a wiki page about the creation of the Wikiid page (which apparently got deleted?). Surely that's relevant?
- nsrivast 18y ago
  It has been suggested that this page or section be merged with Wikiid.
- Angostura 18y ago
  Well there is: http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page
  - unalone 18y ago
    Nah, it didn't catch it.
dbul 18y ago
This is reminiscent of Hofstadter's desire for a book of reviews of itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter#Columnist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter#Columnist). Wikipedia tries to keep its integrity, but I think sometimes they need to be more reasonable. Someone ought to create a complement to wikipedia which allows people to add things like this and other non-spam articles which wikipedia editors won't tolerate.
- unalone 18y ago
  I guess not surprisingly, I attempted to write a book of reviews of itself once. The idea still lingers in my mind, and I'd suspect that after a handful of years I'll pull it out and finish it. (I think the idea will be to mark the book as a "50th anniversary edition" of itself, and have the entire thing just be a history of forwards to the book from various known literary critics, documenting the critical reception of the book throughout history. It's a very conceited idea.)
- MaysonL 18y ago
  It's already been written: The Book of the Book by Idries Shah (1969). http://www.amazon.com/Book-Idries-Shah/dp/090086012X http://www.amazon.com/Book-Idries-Shah/dp/090086012X
dkokelley 18y ago
Somehow, http://xkcd.com/545/ http://xkcd.com/545/ and http://xkcd.com/446/ http://xkcd.com/446/ seem appropriate to mention here. Hint: Check the alt text
unalone 18y ago
Looks like a few people are vandalizing stuff - which is pretty awesome and should definitely be added to the page's "history" at some point - but for a reference point, the page looked like this when I submitted it: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Diikiw/Wikiid&oldid=251285005 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Diikiw/Wikiid...
henning 18y ago
This reminds me of the old joke about induction in mathematics. Maybe it could be adapted as follows: Claim: Every Wikipedia page ever made is notable. Proof: Suppose at least one Wikipedia page that is not notable exists. Choose the one whose length in characters is smallest. Then surely this page is notable for being the short non-notable Wikipedia page ever created, making it quite notable, indeed. We have reached a contradiction and hence the proof is complete. Or something like that.
- tpyo 18y ago
  Why does it have to the the shortest page? The logic is flawed.
  - henning 18y ago
    In the 'interesting number paradox' the smallest non-interesting number is chosen. By convention every ordered set has a smallest element which is arbitrarily chosen. The logic is flawed for the main reason that partitioning sets in any non-objective manner and then drawing conclusions from that is folly, which is the point of such so-called paradoxes.
    - time_management 18y ago
      I tend to think of "interestingness" as a fuzzy property that is at or near 1 on the obviously interesting integers {0, 1, ...} and approaches 0 as N -> infinity. But that obviously doesn't alter the fact that "interestingness" is extremely subjective. Another cool paradox is the one surrounding "the smallest positive integer that cannot be expressed using twenty or fewer English words".
  - jibiki 18y ago
    It's not the shortest page on wikipedia, just the shortest non-notable page. (As in "shortest(non-notable page)", not "(shortest, non-notable)page".)
    - nx 18y ago
mikeryan 18y ago
Anyone can make a page notable enough to avoid deletion. Fill it with well written, relevant and verifiable materials and its fine.
- unalone 18y ago
  You miss the point. The concept is that Wikipedia itself is a notable web site. The question became: was it possible to make a page that cited no source outside of Wikipedia, yet managed to create relevant content by citing Wikipedia? The answer was no, but I still hold that Wikipedia's belief that it can manage to stay NPOV when it's selective about what it deems relevant or not is a deluded one, and one of the most damning parts of the web site.
- wmf 18y ago
  "Within Wikipedia, notability refers to whether or not a topic merits its own article." (emphasis added) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability Topics are notable; articles are not. If a topic is non-notable in the real world, nothing written on Wikipedia should change that.

40 points by unalone 18y ago

> It can be looked at both as metahumor and as a piece of postmodern art. I think this is more of a recursive humor than metahumor.

unalone 18y ago
True, false classification. (Metahumor would be humor about humor.) Well, it's a wiki page, so anybody can edit it and fix stuff like that.
- donaq 18y ago
  Well, according to wikipedia, in which metahumor redirects to meta-joke: Meta-joke refers to three somewhat different, but related categories: "self-referential jokes", "jokes about jokes" (see meta-) also known as metahumor, and "joke templates". Recursive humor would be a subclass of self-referential jokes, going by the definition for self-referential jokes as given by (what else?) Wikipedia. This kind of meta-joke is a joke in which the joke itself, or rather a familiar class of jokes, is part of the joke.

nicara 18y ago

There should be a wiki page about the creation of the Wikiid page (which apparently got deleted?). Surely that's relevant?

nsrivast 18y ago
It has been suggested that this page or section be merged with Wikiid.
Angostura 18y ago
Well there is: http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page
- unalone 18y ago
  Nah, it didn't catch it.

dbul 18y ago

This is reminiscent of Hofstadter's desire for a book of reviews of itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter#Columnist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter#Columnist). Wikipedia tries to keep its integrity, but I think sometimes they need to be more reasonable. Someone ought to create a complement to wikipedia which allows people to add things like this and other non-spam articles which wikipedia editors won't tolerate.

unalone 18y ago
I guess not surprisingly, I attempted to write a book of reviews of itself once. The idea still lingers in my mind, and I'd suspect that after a handful of years I'll pull it out and finish it. (I think the idea will be to mark the book as a "50th anniversary edition" of itself, and have the entire thing just be a history of forwards to the book from various known literary critics, documenting the critical reception of the book throughout history. It's a very conceited idea.)
MaysonL 18y ago
It's already been written: The Book of the Book by Idries Shah (1969). http://www.amazon.com/Book-Idries-Shah/dp/090086012X http://www.amazon.com/Book-Idries-Shah/dp/090086012X

dkokelley 18y ago

Somehow, http://xkcd.com/545/ http://xkcd.com/545/ and http://xkcd.com/446/ http://xkcd.com/446/ seem appropriate to mention here. Hint: Check the alt text

unalone 18y ago

Looks like a few people are vandalizing stuff - which is pretty awesome and should definitely be added to the page's "history" at some point - but for a reference point, the page looked like this when I submitted it: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Diikiw/Wikiid&oldid=251285005 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Diikiw/Wikiid...

henning 18y ago

This reminds me of the old joke about induction in mathematics. Maybe it could be adapted as follows: Claim: Every Wikipedia page ever made is notable. Proof: Suppose at least one Wikipedia page that is not notable exists. Choose the one whose length in characters is smallest. Then surely this page is notable for being the short non-notable Wikipedia page ever created, making it quite notable, indeed. We have reached a contradiction and hence the proof is complete. Or something like that.

tpyo 18y ago
Why does it have to the the shortest page? The logic is flawed.
- henning 18y ago
  In the 'interesting number paradox' the smallest non-interesting number is chosen. By convention every ordered set has a smallest element which is arbitrarily chosen. The logic is flawed for the main reason that partitioning sets in any non-objective manner and then drawing conclusions from that is folly, which is the point of such so-called paradoxes.
  - time_management 18y ago
    I tend to think of "interestingness" as a fuzzy property that is at or near 1 on the obviously interesting integers {0, 1, ...} and approaches 0 as N -> infinity. But that obviously doesn't alter the fact that "interestingness" is extremely subjective. Another cool paradox is the one surrounding "the smallest positive integer that cannot be expressed using twenty or fewer English words".
- jibiki 18y ago
  It's not the shortest page on wikipedia, just the shortest non-notable page. (As in "shortest(non-notable page)", not "(shortest, non-notable)page".)
  - nx 18y ago

mikeryan 18y ago

Anyone can make a page notable enough to avoid deletion. Fill it with well written, relevant and verifiable materials and its fine.

unalone 18y ago
You miss the point. The concept is that Wikipedia itself is a notable web site. The question became: was it possible to make a page that cited no source outside of Wikipedia, yet managed to create relevant content by citing Wikipedia? The answer was no, but I still hold that Wikipedia's belief that it can manage to stay NPOV when it's selective about what it deems relevant or not is a deluded one, and one of the most damning parts of the web site.
wmf 18y ago
"Within Wikipedia, notability refers to whether or not a topic merits its own article." (emphasis added) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability Topics are notable; articles are not. If a topic is non-notable in the real world, nothing written on Wikipedia should change that.