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I'm sure you all know the phrase "with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow". The same could be applied to Wikipedia and helps explain how the author slipped throu

I'm sure you all know the phrase "with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow". The same could be applied to Wikipedia and helps explain how the author slipped through: People only contribute to things that are in their sight. The author says this himself by noting that Wikipedia is human driven. His article wasn't notability-checked after the initial creation because no editor probably saw it. You see the opposite in the GoT article, where every detail is bought under scrutiny. He also probably got a pass because the article was created by an established editor rather than a brand new user. Given enough time though, I'm sure some editor might've seen it and would have put the notability template that exists on the page now. Dig into the depths of Wikipedia and I can guarantee you'll find tons of non-notable articles that no one bothered to bring up for deletion, but is headlined with cleanup templates. Heck, just the other day I saw an article that tried to pass for notability by indiscriminately littering the page with citations that just barely mentioned the subjects' name. All it takes is one well-meaning editor to double-check any dubious claims by looking at their citations and making sure they are reliable. It's a bit silly to make it sound like he gamed the system. He didn't pass the notability test; it just wasn't administered yet. The editors that worked on his behalf were well-versed in the rules and they worked within them, acknowledging that the article might not last. You either get a speedy deletion of something obvious in the new queue or you get discussions for deletion for things that aren't apparently notable to someone else.

ahelwer 12y ago
Heck, just check out the "list of collaborative software" and "list of project management software" articles; they're there more as a quarantine zone/chew toy than anything. Every time someone makes a crappy productivity webapp they apparently feel justified in creating its wikipedia article. These often continue to exist for a year or two before an editor finally takes the time to throw it into the delete queue. At least these are indexed in one place, whereas biographies of obscure people have no such convenient referral page.
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
> It's a bit silly to make it sound like he gamed the system. He didn't pass the notability test; it just wasn't administered yet. Precisely. The moment someone goes and checks the citations, it turns out they're mostly junk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Andrew_McMillen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... This stuck around for the same reason hoaxes stick around: it looked vaguely legitimate so nobody bothered looking in-depth or nominating it for deletion.
EazyC 12y ago
> He also probably got a pass because the article was created by an established editor rather than a brand new user. This is the biggest deal that no one else is realizing. The rest is basically in the details. Not only did an established editor create the page, but the expertise in formatting, properly citing (or at least making it look like it), and writing correct verbosity that imitates a very professional and 'notable' wikipedia article is what made this fly under the radar. A quick skim of the article leaves absolutely no suspicion to the even partially trained eye (I'm not some power editor on Wikipedia, but I do edit/am active).

ahelwer 12y ago

Heck, just check out the "list of collaborative software" and "list of project management software" articles; they're there more as a quarantine zone/chew toy than anything. Every time someone makes a crappy productivity webapp they apparently feel justified in creating its wikipedia article. These often continue to exist for a year or two before an editor finally takes the time to throw it into the delete queue. At least these are indexed in one place, whereas biographies of obscure people have no such convenient referral page.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago

> It's a bit silly to make it sound like he gamed the system. He didn't pass the notability test; it just wasn't administered yet. Precisely. The moment someone goes and checks the citations, it turns out they're mostly junk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Andrew_McMillen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... This stuck around for the same reason hoaxes stick around: it looked vaguely legitimate so nobody bothered looking in-depth or nominating it for deletion.

EazyC 12y ago

> He also probably got a pass because the article was created by an established editor rather than a brand new user. This is the biggest deal that no one else is realizing. The rest is basically in the details. Not only did an established editor create the page, but the expertise in formatting, properly citing (or at least making it look like it), and writing correct verbosity that imitates a very professional and 'notable' wikipedia article is what made this fly under the radar. A quick skim of the article leaves absolutely no suspicion to the even partially trained eye (I'm not some power editor on Wikipedia, but I do edit/am active).