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Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

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Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#21

Post by tptacek »

esad wrote: post #10
tptacek wrote: post #2

Without repeating the same boring arguments about whether everything should be covered on Wikipedia, and just stipulating, whether you truly agree with them or not, that we'll confine ourselves to Wikipedia's policy of requiring that articles both assert and document notability: Doesn't it stand to reason that most "hackerspaces" aren't notable? Wikipedia doesn't even have coverage for every major office building in…

Why is inclusionism so bad? So what if we had a wikipedia article for every office building in Chicago or every Pokemon out there?

We probably should have a Wikipedia article for every office building in Chicago.

We probably should not have a Wikipedia article for every hackerspace in the world.

We may want more articles about hackerspaces on Wikipedia.

If we do, it does not help that almost everybody who has ever gone so far as to give their planned hackerspace a name has probably also added a (crappy) page to Wikipedia about their planned project.

Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#22

Post by tptacek »

pangram wrote: post #8
nivertech wrote: post #6

I think, that Wikipedia should have "Donate to prevent deletion" button on every article ;)

Yes, this is brilliant -- and could take care of Wikipedia's funding problems is one stroke.

Yes! Wikipedia could definitely fund itself by selling links on the top of every Google SERP! Why didn't they think of that? :)

Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#23

Post by tptacek »

arctangent wrote: post #3
tptacek wrote: post #2

Without repeating the same boring arguments about whether everything should be covered on Wikipedia, and just stipulating, whether you truly agree with them or not, that we'll confine ourselves to Wikipedia's policy of requiring that articles both assert and document notability: Doesn't it stand to reason that most "hackerspaces" aren't notable? Wikipedia doesn't even have coverage for every major office building in…

Perhaps the test of notability for something like a hackerspace should be whether a successful (and thus de facto notable) company emerged from it? I imagine that Y Combinator wouldn't be deserving of its own Wikipedia page if nothing had yet come of it. Why should other incubators be treated differently?

YC startup people drink a lot of coffee. Should we have an article on each coffee shop frequented by founders of successful YC companies?

There are notable hackerspaces. Notable hackerspaces should get coverage on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is very up-front about its definition of "notability".

Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#24

Post by olalonde »

esad wrote: post #10
tptacek wrote: post #2

Without repeating the same boring arguments about whether everything should be covered on Wikipedia, and just stipulating, whether you truly agree with them or not, that we'll confine ourselves to Wikipedia's policy of requiring that articles both assert and document notability: Doesn't it stand to reason that most "hackerspaces" aren't notable? Wikipedia doesn't even have coverage for every major office building in…

Why is inclusionism so bad? So what if we had a wikipedia article for every office building in Chicago or every Pokemon out there?

There's already such a Wikipedia and it's called the Web. Not sure we need another one...

Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#25

Post by c3o »

arctangent wrote: post #3
tptacek wrote: post #2

Without repeating the same boring arguments about whether everything should be covered on Wikipedia, and just stipulating, whether you truly agree with them or not, that we'll confine ourselves to Wikipedia's policy of requiring that articles both assert and document notability: Doesn't it stand to reason that most "hackerspaces" aren't notable? Wikipedia doesn't even have coverage for every major office building in…

Perhaps the test of notability for something like a hackerspace should be whether a successful (and thus de facto notable) company emerged from it? I imagine that Y Combinator wouldn't be deserving of its own Wikipedia page if nothing had yet come of it. Why should other incubators be treated differently?

Hackerspaces are something very different from incubators, so that's not a fair comparison. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace

Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#26

Post by angus77 »

SwellJoe wrote: post #16
rmc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are much less hackerspaces per city (usually 1) than office blocks per city.

There's only one SwellJoe in the entire world . Shall I add myself to WikiPedia?

Wouldn't adding yourself be a conflict of interest?

Convince someone else to add you.

Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#27

Post by tibbon »

tptacek wrote: post #21
esad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is inclusionism so bad? So what if we had a wikipedia article for every office building in Chicago or every Pokemon out there?

We probably should have a Wikipedia article for every office building in Chicago. We probably should not have a Wikipedia article for every hackerspace in the world. We may want more articles about hackerspaces on Wikipedia. If we do, it does not help that almost everybody who has ever gone so far as to give their planned hackerspace a name has probably also added a (crappy) page to Wikipedia about their planned proj…

Maybe there aren't articles for every building in Chicago... but you can look up almost every block/building in NYC.

You act as if every hacker space is only in the planning stages. I'm a member of a functional, and running hackerspace that's doing just fine and in action today.

Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#28

Post by tibbon »

_delirium wrote: post #17
jokermatt999 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to be part of Wikipedia, anyone can and should go and start helping out. Deletionism doesn't exactly encourage people from these groups to come help out. That, and the endless politics/bureaucracy have kept me from bothering to edit. Why make a change when it will likely be reverted?

A good place to start is to write an article on: 1) something you are not personally closely connected to; and 2) have information on, from decent third-party sources that you can cite. Nobody I know who's done that has had a problem, though I obviously don't know thousands of people. People don't generally go around randomly deleting well-cited articles that don't appear to be self-promotion. I certainly write about…

I personally find it hard to think of things that I'm an expert on, but have no connections to. I probably know more about the sources and articles about the university I attended better than I know or read about UC Davis for example. Also, since I have never been anywhere near UC Davis, I have little incentive to write on it.

Could I take random articles and potentially find things to cite for them? Sure, but would they really be the best citations? That I'm unsure of. I'm not close to them and I'm not really qualified to write on them or choose sources.

For example, if I wanted to write on Neuroanatomy, I could find plenty of citations, but they might be from shitty journals. But I don't know the difference between the good journals and the bad ones because I'm not in this field. It is entirely possible that I could write a very well cited article with plenty of citations that is complete bunk. Yet my girlfriend is working on her PhD in Neuroscience, so she would be much better qualified to write on it. Yet, she's perhaps too close to the subject?

Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#29

Post by powellc »

tibbon wrote: post #28
_delirium wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good place to start is to write an article on: 1) something you are not personally closely connected to; and 2) have information on, from decent third-party sources that you can cite. Nobody I know who's done that has had a problem, though I obviously don't know thousands of people. People don't generally go around randomly deleting well-cited articles that don't appear to be self-promotion. I certainly write about…

I personally find it hard to think of things that I'm an expert on, but have no connections to. I probably know more about the sources and articles about the university I attended better than I know or read about UC Davis for example. Also, since I have never been anywhere near UC Davis, I have little incentive to write on it. Could I take random articles and potentially find things to cite for them? Sure, but would…

It's like quantum mechanics for information. You can know about something, but then you've likely gotten personally connected too. Keep your distance while trying to be informative and you just look like Terry Gross on Fresh Air: a pseudo-specialist who gets charmed by the likes of Brian Greene and the "multi-verse."

God help us all if the multiverse wikipedia entry quotes Gross' interview with Greene and counts towards "notability."

Re: Lots of Hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion

#30

Post by _delirium »

tibbon wrote: post #28
_delirium wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good place to start is to write an article on: 1) something you are not personally closely connected to; and 2) have information on, from decent third-party sources that you can cite. Nobody I know who's done that has had a problem, though I obviously don't know thousands of people. People don't generally go around randomly deleting well-cited articles that don't appear to be self-promotion. I certainly write about…

I personally find it hard to think of things that I'm an expert on, but have no connections to. I probably know more about the sources and articles about the university I attended better than I know or read about UC Davis for example. Also, since I have never been anywhere near UC Davis, I have little incentive to write on it. Could I take random articles and potentially find things to cite for them? Sure, but would…

How close is too close is a bit of a gray area, but a whole subject isn't really off-limits. I'm a computer scientist, for example, and write CS-related articles. But it's best practice for me not to write articles on algorithms or concepts I've personally invented, and ideally not those my advisor or other close associates have invented either. But something Knuth invented is fair game.
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