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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

#81

Post by [deleted] »

alextgordon wrote: post #80
raganwald wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#82

Post by [deleted] »

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:…

[deleted]

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#83

Post by mquander »

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…

That's true, but to someone who isn't steeped in Wikipedia-lore, saying that a language's page should be removed from Wikipedia, for whatever reason, is a statement about the language's fans, users or authors, because why would you remove a topic that's useful for a lot of people?

(Not to have the debate implied by my question here -- but that's the thought process, and I don't think it's unreasonable.)

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#84

Post by Retric »

steveklabnik wrote: post #71
Retric wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

AliceML is an edge case where arguments can be made on both sides (I would have kept it). However the rule is more setup to avoid people adding their family tree and favorite recopies to Wikipedia etc resulting in 10 billion articles and no way to manage them. Overall I think it's a fairly loose standard ex:(Random article) gave me

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookpeople_(distributor)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Nash_(basketball)
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Holme_Larsen
I can see keeping the first and possibly the second, but why not delete the third?

PS: A different option might be to build a custom AI to validate things, but for now balancing Notable around the size of the community seems reasonable.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#85

Post by chwahoo »

fat_tony wrote: post #63
jemfinch wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sho…

It's worth pointing out that even football referees have a good amount of discretion when making a call. They don't change the rules, but they selectively apply them.

You might be right, but I think your claim is more controversial than you imply. For the most part, I think the league would prefer the rules be applied mechanically. The one exception I can imagine is giving a player a warning about borderline instances of some infraction before calling a penalty.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#87

Post by copper »

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…

For what it's worth, the stuff that passes for discussion on the AfD pages makes me wonder if something like the Scholarpedia model for articles is the better way of doing things.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#88

Post by raganwald »

mquander wrote: post #83
raganwald wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's true, but to someone who isn't steeped in Wikipedia-lore, saying that a language's page should be removed from Wikipedia, for whatever reason, is a statement about the language's fans, users or authors, because why would you remove a topic that's useful for a lot of people? (Not to have the debate implied by my question here -- but that's the thought process, and I don't think it's unreasonable.)

saying that a language's page should be removed from Wikipedia, for whatever reason, is a statement about the language's fans, users or authors, because why would you remove a topic that's useful for a lot of people?

The notability guidelines, as you can grasp from the name, speak to whether something has been noted, not whether it is useful. Example: My last bike used something called a Hammerschmidt crank. It was a two-speed planetary gear device that behaved like a two chainring front crank, but had all the mechanics inside a drum.

It is very useful, was featured on many OEM bicycles, and people love them. There is no Wikipedia page for it right now, just a mention on the Crankset page.

Is the Hammerchmidt notable? If we do a search, we find reviews, the manufacturer's page, and classified ads for them. It isn't notable yet by Wikipedia's rules. If you think it ought to be notable, your issue is with the rules, not with their application.

Now, I just discussed Hammerschmidt cranks and their notability or lack of same. Nothing I said says anything about their manufacturer, distributors, users, reviewers... The damn things are useful and I admire the people who make them and sell them. But once we grasp that useful != notable, we grasp that a statement about their notability != a statement about their users or inventors.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#90

Post by mindcrime »

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…

One problem is that you kinda touched a "raw nerve" here. This isn't the first time this issue has come up, and a lot of people are very sensitive to it. There's a very strong strand of thought among some people that suggests that Wikipedia should change it's guidelines vis-a-vis software / programming langauges / etc. In fact, there has been an effort - at least once - to get a new guideline accepted. It failed, but my point is that this is a contentious subject that is still being actively debated, and where emotions are already flaring for some. Bring in the constant tension between deletionists and inclusionists, and any sort of concerted effort to start targeting tech related articles for deletion is almost bound to spark a shit-storm of controversy.

I'll allow that you might have been in the right on all of your AfD flags, under some interpretation of WP policies. But I think you were wrong to do what amounts to jabbing a stick into a hornet's nest, and then wonder why you're getting stung. You stuck a %!#@ng stick into a hornet's nest, that's why.

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