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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

#71

Post by steveklabnik »

Retric wrote: post #70
steveklabnik wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With the current model there needs to be some line because editors are a finite resource and people do occasionally deface articles etc. I would suggest having Wikipedia’s deleted articles end up on another website (using the same backend) which is then ignored by the editorial community to avoid annoying people. PS: There are already plenty of other wiki's with different focus. There is little need for ex: naruto.wi…

The notability guidelines don't address this at all. If the article about AliceML got defaced, the people who obviously care about it would fix it.

And if nobody cares about the article, why does it matter if it's been defaced? And why not delete it once it's been defaced, rather than pre-emptively?

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#72

Post by alextgordon »

chrismonsanto wrote: post #62
shekmalhen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AfD process is problematic, but Christopher was also problematic. He was strictly following the rules, even when it didn't make sense, and continued to do so even after other users were telling him, politely, that he was wrong. This sort of behavior is not acceptable on Wikipedia (at least, according to everyone who comments on ridiculous AfD stories). As for teaching him a lesson: he was caught live. The harshne…

Hey, come on. I thought in many cases my nominations DID make sense -- most of the languages I nominated had neighborhood-of-zero information available about them on the web, and some of them were blatant advertising. Alice ML and Nemerle were more borderline than I thought, but a lot of people (less so on this site than on reddit) seem to think that I singlehandedly deleted the articles in question, when I instead j…

You insulted people by saying that something they have invested time in is not "notable". Therefore they insulted you back. This shouldn't be surprising.

If I go and nominate "Ball-peen hammer" for deletion, I'm probably going to get [called] ignorant in the AfD discussion. That doesn't mean that "Ball-peen hammer" should then be deleted.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#73

Post by silverlake »

As a fan and user(!) of Factor, I agree that it fails the notability test on Wikipedia. I can't find any mention of the language, beyond that by the author, which might convince a 3rd person that it is more notable than my own pet PL projects. But this might be true of many implementations of well-defined languages like Smalltalk, Scheme, or C. Take a look at the big list of Scheme implementations[1]. How many of them are "notable"? Is Ikarus or Chicken notable? Many PL papers describe some minor tweak in a homegrown toy language. Are all those languages notable?

I think Factor deserves to have a Wikipedia page (it still does), but I don't know by what general criteria I'm including it. It has a complete, robust implementation and is still actively developed, which is more than could be said of 90% of PLs out there. But how do we codify that into a notability test?

[1] http://community.schemewiki.org/?scheme-faq-standards#implem...

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#74

Post by steveklabnik »

chrismonsanto wrote: post #66
mfukar wrote: post #5

If anyone thought what I was doing was wrong, they could have just sent me a friendly message and I would have politely discussed the issue. I guess he missed all the subtle indicators people left all over the place saying "Christopher, we are upset".

No, my understanding was that a small, but vocal, special interest group was upset for nominating their favorite programming language. The vast majority of angry people seemed unable to come up with a rational reason for saving the article. The vast majority of calm people seemed to agree with the deletions, and agreed with me for labeling the others as a small-but-vocal-minority. If you felt you were doing something…

> I regret that I am unable to reply to each comment individually, HN's software stops me from making too many posts.

At least you're getting voted up, which should help. It's an anti-spam measure... also, try clicking on the 'link' of something you want to reply to. If there's too much back and forth in a thread, it'll hide the 'reply' button in an attempt to slow down conversation, but obviously this is a bit of a special case.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#75

Post by rst »

j_baker wrote: post #32
copper wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important thing would be restoring the articles. As far as I can see, that isn't happening (yet). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_(programming_language) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemerle I might just be seeing a cached version, though. edit: grr, I cannot reply to you, but yes, that was my point exactly: he could request a deletion review.

Chris is just another Wikipedian though. He has the same ability to undo the changes as you do.

He's not "just another Wikipedian", he's the particular Wikipedian that made this mess. So he has a particular responsibility to clean it up.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#76

Post by raganwald »

alextgordon wrote: post #72
chrismonsanto wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, come on. I thought in many cases my nominations DID make sense -- most of the languages I nominated had neighborhood-of-zero information available about them on the web, and some of them were blatant advertising. Alice ML and Nemerle were more borderline than I thought, but a lot of people (less so on this site than on reddit) seem to think that I singlehandedly deleted the articles in question, when I instead j…

You insulted people by saying that something they have invested time in is not "notable". Therefore they insulted you back. This shouldn't be surprising. If I go and nominate "Ball-peen hammer" for deletion, I'm probably going to get [called] ignorant in the AfD discussion. That doesn't mean that "Ball-peen hammer" should then be deleted.

You insulted people by saying that something they have invested time in is not "notable"

I'm very sorry, but this is what they call "Taking things too personally." You can say that "Faux," my JS framework, is not notable. How is this an insult to me? You can say that I'm not notable. Again, how is this an insult to me?

"Notable" is not a synonym for "worthwhile," it's related to the word "popular." Saying that a language doesn't meet Wikipedia's guidelines is not a statement about the language's fans, users, or authors. It's a statement about a particular test you apply by searching the world's existing information storehouse for mentions of the subject.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#77

Post by steveklabnik »

teyc wrote: post #55
justincormack wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Check it out for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alice_programming_...

> A page with this title has previously been deleted. If you are creating a new page with different content, please continue. If you are recreating a page similar to the previously deleted page, or are unsure, please first contact the deleting administrator using the information provided below.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#78

Post by scott_s »

alextgordon wrote: post #72
chrismonsanto wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, come on. I thought in many cases my nominations DID make sense -- most of the languages I nominated had neighborhood-of-zero information available about them on the web, and some of them were blatant advertising. Alice ML and Nemerle were more borderline than I thought, but a lot of people (less so on this site than on reddit) seem to think that I singlehandedly deleted the articles in question, when I instead j…

You insulted people by saying that something they have invested time in is not "notable". Therefore they insulted you back. This shouldn't be surprising. If I go and nominate "Ball-peen hammer" for deletion, I'm probably going to get [called] ignorant in the AfD discussion. That doesn't mean that "Ball-peen hammer" should then be deleted.

Telling people that their work is not notable is not an insult. If someone said that to me, I'd probably give a wry grin, shrug my shoulders and say "Yeah, kinda sucks, huh?" Most work is not notable. It's not defensible to attack someone because they made a factual claim that your work has had negligible impact.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#79

Post by jamesaguilar »

alextgordon wrote: post #72
chrismonsanto wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, come on. I thought in many cases my nominations DID make sense -- most of the languages I nominated had neighborhood-of-zero information available about them on the web, and some of them were blatant advertising. Alice ML and Nemerle were more borderline than I thought, but a lot of people (less so on this site than on reddit) seem to think that I singlehandedly deleted the articles in question, when I instead j…

You insulted people by saying that something they have invested time in is not "notable". Therefore they insulted you back. This shouldn't be surprising. If I go and nominate "Ball-peen hammer" for deletion, I'm probably going to get [called] ignorant in the AfD discussion. That doesn't mean that "Ball-peen hammer" should then be deleted.

It is not an insult to say a work is non-notable.

And, well, ball-peen hammers are quite notable. They probably have quite a few more practicing users than many of the languages this guy nominated. The problem with someone saying, "ball peen hammers aren't notable," is not that the creator of ball peen hammers might feel insulted. The problem is that the statement is incorrect.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#80

Post by alextgordon »

raganwald wrote: post #76
alextgordon wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You insulted people by saying that something they have invested time in is not "notable". Therefore they insulted you back. This shouldn't be surprising. If I go and nominate "Ball-peen hammer" for deletion, I'm probably going to get [called] ignorant in the AfD discussion. That doesn't mean that "Ball-peen hammer" should then be deleted.

You insulted people by saying that something they have invested time in is not "notable" I'm very sorry, but this is what they call "Taking things too personally." You can say that "Faux," my JS framework, is not notable. How is this an insult to me? You can say that I'm not notable. Again, how is this an insult to me? "Notable" is not a synonym for "worthwhile," it's related to the word "popular." Saying that a lang…

I am not claiming otherwise, I'm just pointing out how people will react if you take such an action, since the grandparent seems rather surprised by it.

The presence of an ad hominem does not make the rest of a comment worthless.

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