7 ms·

It's too bad that all of these grand visions and truly positive developments for humanity are locked inside of an exclusionary, elitist organization that is gov

by rsync 14y ago

It's too bad that all of these grand visions and truly positive developments for humanity are locked inside of an exclusionary, elitist organization that is governed by deletionism and will take any contribution you might possibly make and CRUSH IT LIKE A BUG.

hyperpape 14y ago
The database is available under creative commons, and they're working on an API, so I'm confused what you're talking about--whether Wikipedia is an elitist organization or not, I don't see how that would matter.
derleth 14y ago
> deletionism Deletionism is the reason it's worth using to begin with. It prevents it from being flooded by crap and allows it to stay on mission. Not everything has to be all things to all people.
- skorgu 14y ago
  Err on which mission exactly? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon
  - magnet_ball 14y ago
    To map all human knowledge.
    - samegreatsleeve 14y ago
      Isn't non-notable knowledge still knowledge? They are only interested in a small slice of human knowledge by their own sated goals.
      - derleth 14y ago
        Just so everyone knows, this person is a troll.
  - derleth 14y ago
    To include verifiable human knowledge.
- rsync 14y ago
  The presence of an article on obsolete BBS software (for instance), somewhere in the wikipedia encyclopedia, does not intersect with anyones use-case that isn't already searching for it. Wikipedia isn't one big giant article, where the existence of marginally noteworthy elements distracts you or diverts your attention. The articles that get deleted by the little notability hitlers are contributions with no cost incurred by anyone, save the trivial storage space. It's like saying some guys tripod page that you never visit is somehow cluttering your experience of web browsing.
  - GFischer 14y ago
    I've had my run-ins with Wikipedia admins (on the Spanish wikipedia they were convinced I was self-promoting myself by creating my country's Finance Minister's Wikipedia page), but most of the deletions are no-brainers (looking at Deletionpedia makes it very clear). I wish they'd err on the side of leaving stuff alone in the 1% of cases where it's not black and white (like the obsolete BBS software example)
  - derleth 14y ago
    > The articles that get deleted by the little notability hitlers are contributions with no cost incurred by anyone, save the trivial storage space. Godwin, and wrong on the merits, as well. The stuff that gets deleted is the stuff that can't be verified, which means there's no way to fact-check it. It isn't about storage space or clutter: It's about not having stuff in there that can't be verified.
    - samegreatsleeve 14y ago
      It's inaccurate to say that wikipedia is fact checked or verified. The existence of a citation does not imply the existence of a fact check or a verification, or verifiability. Even when citations are high quality, the info they're supporting is still usually unverifiable due to wikipedia's disconnection from the community of experts. Wikipedia is nothing more than the biggest plagiarist / content farm on the Internet. It isn't scrutinized because it has been grandfathered in. Wikipedia is the ebaumsworld of information. Completely unreliable. Steals credit, traffic, royalties from the content creators. Policies focused on self preservation rather than serving a public good or respecting creators.
pavanky 14y ago
Cite some examples.
- NoahTheDuke 14y ago
  gwern talks about it a bunch on his site [1]. [1]: http://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism#the-editing-community-is-dead-who-killed-it http://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism#the-ed...
eksith 14y ago
That's a bit harsh. It's true the admins take notability pretty seriously, but to be fair, so does Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wikipedia folks freely admit that they're elitist in that regard, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. They set it to that level for the sake of maintaining quality and relevancy (which is a measure of notability) to an acceptable degree. The foundation's ultimate goal is to make a reliable resource for knowledge after all. What we need to "balance it out" if you will, is maybe another entity(ies) with a broader scope and maybe a looser threshold for notability, but hopefully with more reliability with expert verification ( Citizendium comes to mind : http://en.citizendium.org http://en.citizendium.org , but it's no where near as comprehensive ). Still it's not easy to run something like Wikipedia, so whoever will do it would have to have deep pockets and seriously dedicated.
- samegreatsleeve 14y ago
  Britannica actually accepts user generated content. They are superior to wikipedia, however, in that they have credible experts vet the content. The complaint about wikipedia is that it fails to live up to its ideals. If you had ever been a wikipedia editor you wouldn't talk the way you do. Even as a domain expert it's intolerable to deal with the wikipedia amateur hour culture. It's far more rewarding to submit your articles to Encyclopedia Britannica.
  - derleth 14y ago
    Just so everyone knows, this person is a troll.
    - samegreatsleeve 14y ago
      [citation needed] wikipedia'd!
tripzilch 14y ago
> deletionism you might enjoy Deletionpedia: http://www.deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page http://www.deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_...
- GFischer 14y ago
  Very interesting :) I can see why most were deleted, I chose to view a few pages at random and they were: - a really non-notable musician (probably self-promotion) - a hoax ("The Independent City-State of Sonora") - a game guide to Super Smash Brawl, this is probably something that should have gone on a blog / GameFAQs - a witty bio about a non-notable person (probably self-bio, or a friend's) I believe the four of them were deservedly well deleted. Two of the cases, the musician and the game guide, should be hosted elsewhere (personal blog or website).
  - Steko 14y ago
    "deservedly well deleted" Under a critereon of "notability" that works great for dead trees but is largely irrelevant to an online primarily text reference.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  Does anybody know if there's a project out there that's the union of Wikipedia & Deletionpedia? Or, IOW, "Wikipedia with deleted pages preserved"? If not, that would be an interesting thing to create...
mjn 14y ago
This is a good example for Paul Graham's "middlebrow dismissal" data set. Generic negative comment about the subject of the article that could be copy-pasted into any article matching a "Wikipedia" string search by a bot.
- JasonFruit 14y ago
  I see the brow a great deal lower than you see it. Middlebrow is unduly dignified.
  - samegreatsleeve 14y ago
    Your comment is itself a negative, middlebrow dismissal. The OPs negativity is middlebrow precisely because it's accurate, but it's beating a dead horse. This means it gets up voted repeatedly, whereas a genuinely low brow comment like "FUK U GAY WIKIPEDIA" would be quickly down voted.
    - JasonFruit 14y ago
      I think by this point you've robbed the word "middlebrow" of any meaning at all.

by rsync 14y ago

hyperpape 14y ago

The database is available under creative commons, and they're working on an API, so I'm confused what you're talking about--whether Wikipedia is an elitist organization or not, I don't see how that would matter.

derleth 14y ago

> deletionism Deletionism is the reason it's worth using to begin with. It prevents it from being flooded by crap and allows it to stay on mission. Not everything has to be all things to all people.

skorgu 14y ago
Err on which mission exactly? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon
- magnet_ball 14y ago
  To map all human knowledge.
  - samegreatsleeve 14y ago
    Isn't non-notable knowledge still knowledge? They are only interested in a small slice of human knowledge by their own sated goals.
    - derleth 14y ago
      Just so everyone knows, this person is a troll.
- derleth 14y ago
  To include verifiable human knowledge.
rsync 14y ago
The presence of an article on obsolete BBS software (for instance), somewhere in the wikipedia encyclopedia, does not intersect with anyones use-case that isn't already searching for it. Wikipedia isn't one big giant article, where the existence of marginally noteworthy elements distracts you or diverts your attention. The articles that get deleted by the little notability hitlers are contributions with no cost incurred by anyone, save the trivial storage space. It's like saying some guys tripod page that you never visit is somehow cluttering your experience of web browsing.
- GFischer 14y ago
  I've had my run-ins with Wikipedia admins (on the Spanish wikipedia they were convinced I was self-promoting myself by creating my country's Finance Minister's Wikipedia page), but most of the deletions are no-brainers (looking at Deletionpedia makes it very clear). I wish they'd err on the side of leaving stuff alone in the 1% of cases where it's not black and white (like the obsolete BBS software example)
- derleth 14y ago
  > The articles that get deleted by the little notability hitlers are contributions with no cost incurred by anyone, save the trivial storage space. Godwin, and wrong on the merits, as well. The stuff that gets deleted is the stuff that can't be verified, which means there's no way to fact-check it. It isn't about storage space or clutter: It's about not having stuff in there that can't be verified.
  - samegreatsleeve 14y ago
    It's inaccurate to say that wikipedia is fact checked or verified. The existence of a citation does not imply the existence of a fact check or a verification, or verifiability. Even when citations are high quality, the info they're supporting is still usually unverifiable due to wikipedia's disconnection from the community of experts. Wikipedia is nothing more than the biggest plagiarist / content farm on the Internet. It isn't scrutinized because it has been grandfathered in. Wikipedia is the ebaumsworld of information. Completely unreliable. Steals credit, traffic, royalties from the content creators. Policies focused on self preservation rather than serving a public good or respecting creators.

pavanky 14y ago

Cite some examples.

NoahTheDuke 14y ago
gwern talks about it a bunch on his site [1]. [1]: http://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism#the-editing-community-is-dead-who-killed-it http://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism#the-ed...

eksith 14y ago

That's a bit harsh. It's true the admins take notability pretty seriously, but to be fair, so does Encyclopaedia Britannica. Wikipedia folks freely admit that they're elitist in that regard, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. They set it to that level for the sake of maintaining quality and relevancy (which is a measure of notability) to an acceptable degree. The foundation's ultimate goal is to make a reliable resource for knowledge after all. What we need to "balance it out" if you will, is maybe another entity(ies) with a broader scope and maybe a looser threshold for notability, but hopefully with more reliability with expert verification ( Citizendium comes to mind : http://en.citizendium.org http://en.citizendium.org , but it's no where near as comprehensive ). Still it's not easy to run something like Wikipedia, so whoever will do it would have to have deep pockets and seriously dedicated.

samegreatsleeve 14y ago
Britannica actually accepts user generated content. They are superior to wikipedia, however, in that they have credible experts vet the content. The complaint about wikipedia is that it fails to live up to its ideals. If you had ever been a wikipedia editor you wouldn't talk the way you do. Even as a domain expert it's intolerable to deal with the wikipedia amateur hour culture. It's far more rewarding to submit your articles to Encyclopedia Britannica.
- derleth 14y ago
  Just so everyone knows, this person is a troll.
  - samegreatsleeve 14y ago
    [citation needed] wikipedia'd!

tripzilch 14y ago

> deletionism you might enjoy Deletionpedia: http://www.deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page http://www.deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_...

GFischer 14y ago
Very interesting :) I can see why most were deleted, I chose to view a few pages at random and they were: - a really non-notable musician (probably self-promotion) - a hoax ("The Independent City-State of Sonora") - a game guide to Super Smash Brawl, this is probably something that should have gone on a blog / GameFAQs - a witty bio about a non-notable person (probably self-bio, or a friend's) I believe the four of them were deservedly well deleted. Two of the cases, the musician and the game guide, should be hosted elsewhere (personal blog or website).
- Steko 14y ago
  "deservedly well deleted" Under a critereon of "notability" that works great for dead trees but is largely irrelevant to an online primarily text reference.
mindcrime 14y ago
Does anybody know if there's a project out there that's the union of Wikipedia & Deletionpedia? Or, IOW, "Wikipedia with deleted pages preserved"? If not, that would be an interesting thing to create...

mjn 14y ago

This is a good example for Paul Graham's "middlebrow dismissal" data set. Generic negative comment about the subject of the article that could be copy-pasted into any article matching a "Wikipedia" string search by a bot.

JasonFruit 14y ago
I see the brow a great deal lower than you see it. Middlebrow is unduly dignified.
- samegreatsleeve 14y ago
  Your comment is itself a negative, middlebrow dismissal. The OPs negativity is middlebrow precisely because it's accurate, but it's beating a dead horse. This means it gets up voted repeatedly, whereas a genuinely low brow comment like "FUK U GAY WIKIPEDIA" would be quickly down voted.
  - JasonFruit 14y ago
    I think by this point you've robbed the word "middlebrow" of any meaning at all.