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Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

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Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#51

Post by scrrr »

j_baker wrote: post #34
Osmose wrote: post #23

Trying to delete stories? He nominated them for an open discussion to be decided by an admin. But that doesn't sound nearly as malicious. There are valid criticisms about the AfD process, but most people are blaming Chris as if he just walked by and deleted the articles on his own. I fear that this issue has become less about fixing broken Wikipedia policies that encourage people like Chris to delete articles, and mo…

The thing that does annoy me is that he seems to agree that the policies need to be changed, but he followed them anyway. Sure, the policies are what ultimately need to be changed, but we also need to discourage blindly following the rules without thinking critically about them.

That's why he's actually a good candidate for being an editor. He is probably the personality type I like to call "football referee". Sticks to the rules even if he thinks they are unfair.

I think such people are indeed very necessary for the world to function (or we'd only have corruption and worse) and there's no reason to be annoyed about them.

Or to put it another way: Don't hate the player. Hate the game.

(But: Exceptions do apply.)

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#52

Post by justincormack »

chmike wrote: post #40

Pruning knowledge is a dangerous process.

Regarding this as pruning knowledge is rather exaggerated. First wikipedia deletions are not deletions, they are just hidden from most users but can be viewed or restored. Second this is not primary knowledge it is a very short and incomplete summary of the primary sources.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#54

Post by Smerity »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #49
ramanujan wrote: post #2

The first public victory of inclusionism over deletionism. Perhaps it is not too late for Wikipedia. If only similar mobs could mete out rough internet justice to the top ten most notorious deletionists, casual contributors may once again walk the hallways of Wikipedia. [only partially tongue-in-cheek here...]

Deletionism is the reason Wikipedia has only a moderate shortage of editors curating content, rather than an utterly insoluble maintenance nightmare. If this farce means the inclusionists are winning, it's the beginning of the end for Wikipedia. They will get what they seem to want—a mirror of the entire web hosted at wikipedia.org, with just as much outdated, useless, and actively misleading crap.

If the issue is with maintenance and proper curation of content then that is what should be discussed.

I'd far prefer in the case that an article is not well maintained that it be flagged for deletion in X months due to absence of proper care. If there is a strong community presence the article can be resurrected and recovered and Wikipedia ultimately improved and only otherwise the article deleted.

I've seen deletionism creep into articles that were very well written, very well cited and overall a great source of information. I hope you are either generalizing or I'm misunderstanding your point as otherwise this does anything but justify deletionism.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#55

Post by teyc »

justincormack wrote: post #52
chmike wrote: post #40

Pruning knowledge is a dangerous process.

Regarding this as pruning knowledge is rather exaggerated. First wikipedia deletions are not deletions, they are just hidden from most users but can be viewed or restored. Second this is not primary knowledge it is a very short and incomplete summary of the primary sources.

I didn't realize that deletion is not permanent.

In what manner is the content hidden? Will it show up in search engine results? Will an anonymous user like myself see the content?

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#56

Post by shin_lao »

_delirium wrote: post #39
iwwr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a band out there with an active online community numbering in the hundreds (which means their offline following is a few orders of magnitude greater), I don't see why they shouldn't have a wikipedia page.

If there are good sources to write an article from, sure. But if there aren't any sources besides the band's website, their MySpace, and a few fans' blog posts, what goes in the article? The usual result is that fans just write a bunch of stuff about the band they like, which doesn't make for the best article. I don't personally care that much, but I don't think the world is greatly harmed by not having those article…

Just basic information, which is better than nothing.

If you enquire about the bank in wikipedia you'll get something like

"Awesome Band is a neo-dark-fusion-hip-hop jazz Slovenian band formed in 2002. They have produced one album called and are currently active."

Answers the question "what is Awesome Band?" which is the role of wikipedia, isn't it?

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#57

Post by steveklabnik »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #49
ramanujan wrote: post #2

The first public victory of inclusionism over deletionism. Perhaps it is not too late for Wikipedia. If only similar mobs could mete out rough internet justice to the top ten most notorious deletionists, casual contributors may once again walk the hallways of Wikipedia. [only partially tongue-in-cheek here...]

Deletionism is the reason Wikipedia has only a moderate shortage of editors curating content, rather than an utterly insoluble maintenance nightmare. If this farce means the inclusionists are winning, it's the beginning of the end for Wikipedia. They will get what they seem to want—a mirror of the entire web hosted at wikipedia.org, with just as much outdated, useless, and actively misleading crap.

Deletionism is also one of the major reasons that I only contribute to the Hackety Hack and Shoes articles on Wikipedia, and nothing else. (oh, and I fear the day when I have to try to prove Hackety Hack 'notable.' I'm pretty sure that it isn't by the letter of the law.)

They'd have more help if they didn't go around deleting things.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#58

Post by jemfinch »

scrrr wrote: post #51
j_baker wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that does annoy me is that he seems to agree that the policies need to be changed, but he followed them anyway. Sure, the policies are what ultimately need to be changed, but we also need to discourage blindly following the rules without thinking critically about them.

That's why he's actually a good candidate for being an editor. He is probably the personality type I like to call "football referee". Sticks to the rules even if he thinks they are unfair. I think such people are indeed very necessary for the world to function (or we'd only have corruption and worse) and there's no reason to be annoyed about them. Or to put it another way: Don't hate the player. Hate the game. (But:…

That's exactly why he's a horrible candidate for being an editor, actually.

Football referees don't have the flexibility or responsibility to alter the rules of the game. They have one and only one duty: to make their calls in accordance with the rules of football as closely as they can.

Wikipedia does not operate under football rules. The fifth pillar of Wikipedia is "Wikipedia does not have firm rules." Editors should enforce the spirit of the rule, even if the letter says otherwise. This is the diametrical opposite approach of football. Someone with a "football referee" attitude is decidedly inappropriate for the role of Wikipedia editor.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#59

Post by tokenadult »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #49
ramanujan wrote: post #2

The first public victory of inclusionism over deletionism. Perhaps it is not too late for Wikipedia. If only similar mobs could mete out rough internet justice to the top ten most notorious deletionists, casual contributors may once again walk the hallways of Wikipedia. [only partially tongue-in-cheek here...]

Deletionism is the reason Wikipedia has only a moderate shortage of editors curating content, rather than an utterly insoluble maintenance nightmare. If this farce means the inclusionists are winning, it's the beginning of the end for Wikipedia. They will get what they seem to want—a mirror of the entire web hosted at wikipedia.org, with just as much outdated, useless, and actively misleading crap.

Rather than a "moderate shortage of editors curating content," the Wikimedia Foundation says that the decline in the number of active administrators is "continuing in an unsustainable fashion."

http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Wikimedia_Editor...

It would be interesting to look at administrators' self-reported reasons for burning out, and it is definitely interesting to look at competing models for building online encyclopedias, but you may be right that an explicitly more inclusionist policy (which allows even more content that cannot be reliably sourced and that may be simply made up by fanboys) would hasten the decline of active Wikipedia administrators and editors in general. On the whole, I have an inclusionist orientation, and still do, but after seeing many more Wikipedia articles from the inside (as a wikipedian) than I once had, I can't say that I disagree with the majority of article deletion decisions that are actually made by current Wikipedia community processes.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#60

Post by jemfinch »

by wrote: post #50
shekmalhen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two situations are way too different: the relationship between a child and his parents implies that the parents have an authority on him. Deletionists have no authority on the content of Wikipedia. They know the policies and how to make Wikipedia work. Those policies grant them an advantage and if they misuse them, the users have little recourses. This, combined with arrogance, enrage the users. I do not approve…

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were supporting a 'rage is sufficient reason to attack people' position. My counter-example was intended to show clearly that rage can be entirely unreasonable and inappropriate and to disprove a general statement that 'rage is sufficient reason to attack people', which glorifies rage and anger over logic and reason. But we were missing each other's points I think.

Pardon my interjection, but did you really believe you'd encounter a real, rational person who actually believed "rage is sufficient reason to attack people"?

I can't imagine any rational person holding that viewpoint, and so in discussion with a rational person, I'd be very unlikely to argue against it without first verifying that they're actually making that claim.

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