Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia • Hacker News Board

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#251

Post by AndyKelley » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 9:49 PM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #203

j_baker wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead of improving the pages (which any self-respecting graduate student could do over a cup of tea and a scone) you just erased them. Unilaterally. Well, technically he and an admin deleted them unilaterally. Regardless, you're correct. The focus should be on building knowledge, not tearing it down.

Unilaterally? Anyone can !vote on an AFD.

I should make a tool that periodically scans the articles for deletion and always votes NO. I could allow anyone else to use this tool as well. Then I think the real voice of the Internet would show that we don't support deletionism!

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#252

Post by pbhjpbhj » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 9:59 PM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #213

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is far too harsh. >" you're a drain on wikipedia, a source of negative knowledge. " Notability requirements are there for a reason. If you think it's notable then there are clear methods on Wikipedia to press your case and establish the notability without stooping to direct personal criticism. I've not looked in detail but from the couple of posts here it seems the languages in question are esoteric and…

> Wikipedia is not intended to be a dumping ground for every last bit of trivia. One person's trivia is another person's useful information. > Unless Alice, for example, has made some profound contribution to CS then it doesn't deserve it's own entry based on the limited number of papers available If significant numbers of people are interested in the subject, then having an article about it promotes the public good.…

>If you have a phenomenon with its own name, it's better for a subject to have it's own article, rather than be a note in another article, because then it's easier to find.

In a world without word indexing that "easier to find" matters a lot.

Your statement directly contradicts Wikipedia guidelines as linked in my previous entry.

>Why should the onus be on hard-working Wikipedia editors to show their articles are worthwhile? Instead, it should be on the vandals who want to destroy work.

Save your spin and lets stick to the issue. The simple answer is "to maintain Wikipedia as an encyclopedic tome with a usable quality".

If you wish to create a quality work of notable articles then it's necessary, IMO, to require an argument for inclusion rather than demand an argument to exclude something.

AFAIK no one is here to destroy worthwhile information, I certainly haven't contributed to Wikipedia to that end, but for some types of information Wikipedia is not the right place to put it. You'll see I linked to a wiki for programming languages, the info fits there well, it can be linked to from a Wikipedia page on more general programming information; why is it essential to duplicate such information?

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#253

Post by parfe » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 10:05 PM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #112

carsongross wrote: post #110

@chrismonsanto has this thread (and the reddit thread) caused you to reevaluate what we, the programming community, consider 'notable'? The easy reaction would be to focus on the flamers, harden your heart and drive ahead. The wise man, here, stops and thinks for a bit. Restore Nemerle.

He's a wikipedia admin. It is commonly recognized fact that all wikipedia admins are on egotistical power-trips, what do you think is going to happen? You will never see an admission of wrongdoing.

He is not an admin and he did not delete the article.

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#254

Post by gwern » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 10:15 PM UTC

carussell wrote: post #241

gwern wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it is a guideline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Red_link#Avoiding_cre...

Reread the comment. tty is not referring to changes like - …[[Nemerle]]… + …Nemerle… He or she is claiming mentions of Nemerle being completely excised from other articles.

Oh, my mistake. I didn't read carefully and assumed tty was referring to the usual backlink removal done by a bot after AfDs - I saw one of them for Nemerle on my watchlist today before I came here.

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#255

Post by nitrogen » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 10:34 PM UTC

tommorris wrote: post #202

burgerbrain wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because 65 bytes is a hell of a thing to waste.

It isn't a hard drive space issue. All deleted articles are kept in the database. Are you seriously advocating that if someone comes and posts an article in main-space which is nothing but an advert for a crappy little garage band or some kid creating an article about how his friends are gay or whatever shouldn't be deleted?

How about instead of deleting them they are blocked from crawlers and all links are rel=nofollowed? That way the information is still available to anyone who knows it exists, but it won't show up in searches. I'd be fine if this is done via an overlay site with Wikipedia as the backend, or better yet, like showdead on HN (which I keep enabled, since sometimes an account gets killed for a single post and the other posts are interesting).

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#256

Post by est » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 11:18 PM UTC

chrismonsanto wrote: post #53

kevbin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reduces the overall usefulness and quality of Wikipedia to delete leaves that are referenced from other Wikipedia pages. Nemerle is an example: there are several references to it from other PL pages, that before your "improvement" could be resolved w/in Wikipedia, but now require going outside of Wikipedia to determine that "Nemerle is a high-level statically-typed programming language for the .NET platform." This…

It takes me but a few minutes to figure out whether I am going to nominate an article for deletion. A single hit that looks like it might possibly be a reliable source and I'm outta there. In other words, the articles I am proposing for deletion are the lowest of the low hanging fruit. I honestly didn't think anyone would care, and to be honest, most don't -- the only reason anyone even took note of what I'm doing is…

> it is very difficult for me to do so when the "good stuff" is buried in WP's lists and categories. More information is not necessarily better :(

Category too crowded? Sure let's just delete a few.

May I suggest you just add a new category for "notable programing languages"?

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#257

Post by est » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 11:21 PM UTC

tsycho wrote: post #199

chrismonsanto wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, of course I know that :( The problem was that the papers mentioned were either 1) not about the subject in question or 2) not cited enough to count. Hopefully your professors also drummed into you that anyone can write a paper and send it to a conference -- the kicker is if it actually makes an impact. Isn't that more-or-less the definition of notability? None of the articles I nominated for deletion had any reli…

HN people, while I whole-heartedly disagree with chrismonsanto's actions here, let's not do any personal attacks. From wikipedia: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greys_Law ) "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."

Link broken. I thought it was deleted

fixed link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greys_Law

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#258

Post by Ingaz » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 11:25 PM UTC

basugasubaku wrote: post #182

It's interesting that there is no longer a Nemerle article on the English Wikipedia, but there is one on the Japanese, Polish, Russian, Finnish, Tajik, Ukrainian, and Chinese Wikipedias. You can see this by going to, e.g., the Japanese article ( http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemerle ) and looking at the language links at bottom of the left sidebar. So if you are a speaker of one of those languages, you're still in luc…

I'm Russian and I almost never read Russian wikipedia articles about programming.

Reasons: a) Terminology is English and looks very unnatural in Russian. Terminology translation is even worse - when I read in Russian I need to make double translation to understand.

  b) Most Russian wiki articles - is just translations from English wiki.

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#259

Post by salvadors » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 12:10 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #5

jedsmith wrote: post #4

I don't remember who said it, but I read something recently which I thought was amusing and not serious (paraphrasing): > All that donation money, and they still can't afford enough hard drive space to avoid deletionism. The guy allegedly doing the flagging has responded on his user page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christopher_Monsanto Edit: The quoted comment was in jest, and too many missed this, so I'll rei…

I calculated that each article might cost them a thousandth of a cent to store. Let's assume it's Enterprise Grade Storage and quintuple the price. Now it costs them a breath-taking five one thousandths of a cent to store.

Would you be willing to pay me five one thousandths of a cent for every article I could create?

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#260

Post by rosstafarian » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 12:16 AM UTC

atomi wrote: post #236

chrismonsanto wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes me but a few minutes to figure out whether I am going to nominate an article for deletion. A single hit that looks like it might possibly be a reliable source and I'm outta there. In other words, the articles I am proposing for deletion are the lowest of the low hanging fruit. I honestly didn't think anyone would care, and to be honest, most don't -- the only reason anyone even took note of what I'm doing is…

>More information is not necessarily better :( Naivety.

I agree. In the case of wikipedia more information IS better, especially if it's accurate and well written. What kind of person in academia believes that less information, even in this context is a good thing?