Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles • Hacker News Board

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#91

Post by mindcrime » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 3:55 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #57

prodigal_erik wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 They will get what they seem to want—a mirror of the entire web hosted at wikipedia.org, with just as much outdated, useless, and actively misleading crap.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.

Same here. I'd be a lot more active in editing Wikipedia if it weren't for the f@#!#ng deletionists. But as long as those pikers are running around deleting stuff left and right, I feel very little motivation to get involved on a regular basis.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#92

Post by steveklabnik » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 4:01 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #84

steveklabnik wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/Bri…

I see this as a UI problem, not a 'real' problem.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#93

Post by bendmorris » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 4:02 PM UTC

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…

Sorry if the title seems sensationalist, but by nominating articles for AfD, he was, effectively, trying to get them deleted. He clearly stated his view that they didn't meet the notability guidelines and should be deleted.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#94

Post by chrismonsanto » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 4:05 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #90

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…

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…

Didn't know. I'm sorry.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#95

Post by bendmorris » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 4:10 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #77

teyc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Minor correction here: the "Alice programming language" page was deleted, only to be moved to "Alice (programming language)". The one you want is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alice_(programming...

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#96

Post by srean » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 4:11 PM UTC

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…

Your understanding is wrong. It is this attitude of yours, that of ascribing fictional motives to those who criticized you, and the failure to comprehend the impact of your actions, that had a role to play in precipitating the outrage in the first place. I am no fan or user of any of the language that you helped delete. But that does not mean I would be ok with those deletions. See my other comments for an elaboration. I know enough that important knowledge also exists as folklore and it is important to preserve them on Wikipedia, precisely because they are not represented adequately elsewhere.

You are clearly disingenuous. You complained about: if only people had told you that you were doing wrong. People did, and you came up with snarks and smileys and gratuitously appointed yourself the position of a judge that decides which citations had impact and which did not. And when it went out of hand, you played the victim and you changed your excuse to 'if only _more_ people did, more reasonably etc. etc'.

``I only recommended a deletion, did not delete it myself``, is another exhibition of dis ingenuousness and irresponsibility. Same for the shuttling between, "I am sorry" and, ``I was right in every case``. (Things between `` `` aren't actual quotes)

I believe you are an adult, everybody expects adults to possess some degree of understanding of what is being told to them and act and apply rules with ownership and responsibility. What is specifically galling is that when push came to a shove you took up the excuse that notably rules are broken. But, earlier, had no problems argumentatively enforcing them blindly. No one had a gun to your head to do whatever you went about doing, you went about doing it anyway and then hid behind a straw-man.

Nobody has the time an energy to, as you indicate, to reason with someone at length. Especially when the other person is being unreasonably pedantic and obnoxious. Most people have a real job and more important things to do.

Edit: @runjake your point well taken and upped.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#97

Post by mc32 » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 4:13 PM UTC

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.

I think you mis-interpreted him. He actually said he believed that all the articles he submitted for deletion were deserving. He did however, say that if people really felt that he was being mis-guided, by following protocol, then, instead of leaving messages on his talk page, he would suggest people work on fixing WP notability guidelines.

When he said "fixing" I don't get the feeling _he_ thinks it's broken but rather is acknowledging other people's take (as evidence) and lead him to believe that there could be room for improvement.

To me this shows that he believes things are ok, but he would agree to any changes if the community thought changes were necessary. That's quite reasonable to me.

That's quite different from the allegation. (That he thought they were wrong but just followed the guidelines anyway. Or have I missed another quote where the allegation is true?

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#98

Post by runjake » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 4:40 PM UTC

srean wrote: post #96

chrismonsanto wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your understanding is wrong. It is this attitude of yours, that of ascribing fictional motives to those who criticized you, and the failure to comprehend the impact of your actions, that had a role to play in precipitating the outrage in the first place. I am no fan or user of any of the language that you helped delete. But that does not mean I would be ok with those deletions. See my other comments for an elaboratio…

A wise man once said "Do not feed the troll."

Edit: before down-arrowing me, you may want to examine the situation. It's pretty apparent this guy has an agenda.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#99

Post by halostatue » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 4:44 PM UTC

copper wrote: post #87

chrismonsanto wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Much of the stuff that passes for discussion on some of the more contentious pages makes me wonder about the whole process. See Talk:Danah_Boyd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Danah_Boyd) for one of the cases that made me realize that the editor process is broken.

Re: Christopher Monsanto gives up trying to delete PL articles

#100

Post by steveklabnik » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 4:56 PM UTC

bendmorris wrote: post #95

steveklabnik wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Minor correction here: the "Alice programming language" page was deleted, only to be moved to "Alice (programming language)". The one you want is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alice_(programming...

Nice catch -- it still illustrates what a deleted page looks like though.