3 ms·

That's really not true though, at least from my experience! In the AFD that is exampled here, the only sources offered were of the form of blogs and forum post

by ErrantX 13y ago

That's really not true though, at least from my experience! In the AFD that is exampled here, the only sources offered were of the form of blogs and forum posts etc. Wikipedia has quite clear and explicit rules against those sorts of sources (for establishing notability) for very well explained reasons. I've always been a bit rolly-eyes at situations like this... Niche wikis are easy to start and can be well-maintained. I bet a programming wiki would be well serviced with a bit of effort. Wikipedia is a general purpose encyclopaedia that has rules designed to cover lots of content, but in such a way as to try and ensure it is as accurate and non-fancrufty as possible. Sometimes notable topics get pushed out on technicalities, sometimes fancruft sneaks in. It's an imperfect system, but in general there is a lot of information there. Unfortunately there is a perception that Wikipedia is the place to be; and individuals with no investment other than to mention (I'm avoiding the word promote because of the connotations) their favourite topic pop their content in expecting it to be fine. It's a little like the old forum ettiquette of the 90's - you didn't hope into a forum and start posting about your new programming language without first checking the forum rules to see if it was okay. The Wikimedia Community is also a great curator for niche Wikis (see Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikiquote, Wiktionary et al.). They recently took on a couple of travel wiki communities. The programming community is dedicated, large, and relatively well educated - there is no reason a Programming Wiki wouldn't work. It would, however, take time and effort for a group to bootstrap - and unfortunately Wikipedia is not the way to sidestep that leg work. (speaking as a long term editor with several featured articles; so hence biased!)

jimktrains2 13y ago
So your solution is to fork Wikipedia into smaller and smaller pieces? These seems like a bad idea. Also, I don't know who created the original page, but how do you know it wasn't someone not on the core dev team? Perhaps everyone involved _did_ follow the rules, but interpreted "notability" differently. Also, don't go all appeal to authority on us. I've been an editor for over 7 years now.
mindcrime 13y ago
That's really not true though, at least from my experience! All I can say is that my experience clearly differs from yours then. But I tend to get involved in the controversial afd discussions a lot, for some reason. In the AFD that is exampled here, the only sources offered were of the form of blogs and forum posts etc. Wikipedia has quite clear and explicit rules against those sorts of sources (for establishing notability) for very well explained reasons. Again, "context matters". We need to find a way to incorporate that point. We can't just wave our hands, dismiss all blog posts and primary sources, and reject everything on those grounds. For a programming language (not just nimrod, but many languages) you just aren't going to get a lot of other sources. But, in context, they are notable and the sources are credible. I'm not claiming to have a final answer to all of this, but I sense that we can do better.

by ErrantX 13y ago

jimktrains2 13y ago

So your solution is to fork Wikipedia into smaller and smaller pieces? These seems like a bad idea. Also, I don't know who created the original page, but how do you know it wasn't someone not on the core dev team? Perhaps everyone involved _did_ follow the rules, but interpreted "notability" differently. Also, don't go all appeal to authority on us. I've been an editor for over 7 years now.

mindcrime 13y ago

That's really not true though, at least from my experience! All I can say is that my experience clearly differs from yours then. But I tend to get involved in the controversial afd discussions a lot, for some reason. In the AFD that is exampled here, the only sources offered were of the form of blogs and forum posts etc. Wikipedia has quite clear and explicit rules against those sorts of sources (for establishing notability) for very well explained reasons. Again, "context matters". We need to find a way to incorporate that point. We can't just wave our hands, dismiss all blog posts and primary sources, and reject everything on those grounds. For a programming language (not just nimrod, but many languages) you just aren't going to get a lot of other sources. But, in context, they are notable and the sources are credible. I'm not claiming to have a final answer to all of this, but I sense that we can do better.