The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

It seems like one of the biggest problems with Wikipedia is the admin class. They often adopt this "us vs them" bunker mentality like one discovers with a few bad police apples. This especially true with new and unregistered users.

To compile the information I posted for Wikipedia, to help it in the goal of determining notability, I probably spent about 1/2 hour in total. I had to pull up some old article and links, since me just saying why the person they were arguing about should be notable wasn't enough.

I then spend more time trying to figure out exactly where I should submit this information. The instructions were to submit to a talk page, but as I noted, the page no longer had a talk page, since it had been deleted. The review deletions page, as I also noted, has instructions that are unclear.

So I wasn't "really willing to engage seriously" to take a "little time" to understand what was going on and simply wanted to "bitch?"

No. If I wanted to just bitch, I'd have tweeted Wikipedia had its head up its ass about killing the page or maybe done a blog post about the removal and left it at that.

Instead, I did research to help them make an informed decision, using my knowledge of the space to ferret out information they'd been unaware of and clearly missed. I spend time trying to figure out how to submit it despite the insane system there.

Perhaps it would be better for you, since you appear to be connected with Wikipedia, to not dismiss things as people in huffs trying to promote friends pages and instead find a way for Wikipedia to better accept information that it should be using to make for a better resource.

What you have isn't a case study here about someone bitching for a friend. What you have is a case study about how Wikipedia does not make fully informed decisions due to the bureaucracy it believes protects the system.

From the second paragraph of the deletion review page:

"Deletion review (DRV) considers disputed deletions and disputed decisions made in deletion-related discussions and speedy deletions. This includes appeals to restore deleted pages and appeals to delete pages kept after a prior discussion."

Further down, under the heading "What is this page for?", in a bold box:

"Deletion Review is the process to be used to challenge the outcome of a deletion debate or to review a speedy deletion.

"1. Deletion Review is to be used where someone is unable to resolve the issue in discussion with the administrator (or other editor) in question. This should be attempted first – courteously invite the admin to take a second look. "2. Deletion Review is to be used if the closer interpreted the debate incorrectly, or if the speedy deletion was done outside of the criteria established for such deletions. "3. Deletion Review may also be used if significant new information has come to light since a deletion and the information in the deleted article would be useful to write a new article. "4.[...]"

This seems to describe precisely your situation, except that I don't think that you ever tried #1. Correct me if you think I'm misinterpreting this.

>1. One person at Wikipedia declares a 7-6 vote to be a "consensus."

It's good that you put quotes there, because Wikipedia has their own rules for determining what they call a consensus. As far as I can tell, they have to do with unanswered arguments. I can see why, because I'd be able to keep my band in high school on Wikipedia by simply calling my friends and knowing that the against side wouldn't be able to find 50 people who gave a shit either way.

>2. The same person at Wikipedia, when alerted to a comment with and substantial information that hadn't been cited before does nothing.

I don't remember what was in your blog entry, but I don't remember you ever getting in contact with "Mkativerata", the person who decided the consensus, just writing on the closed archive page. He/she most probably never saw it, according to the message helpfully left for you by Metropolitan90.

3. A second person at Wikipedia, also alerted to the same comment, also does nothing other than leave a message that I should do a Deletion Review.

The "second person", who noticed the comment, does nothing but leave a friendly message that told you that your other message would likely not be read, and referred you to the same link that was at the top of the archive page that you edited.

Sounds like nothing but kindness coming from Wikipedia's side, and success at keeping to the standards that they intend to keep to. The only failure I see here is the failure of a person who believes that they have a strong case for the inclusion of an entry in Wikipedia to ever make that case to anyone, through an angry refusal to follow simple directions or to show any respect to people he certainly demands a lot of respect from.

Also, let me apoligize for replying to this again, because you've certainly gotten enough shit for a few misunderstandings during what was obviously a frustrating process for you. I just feel that when somebody completely fails in every way to follow directions, to the point where I feel that you still haven't read them even to answer criticism, and condemns Wikipedia with a broad brush in an article with a linkbait title, I should do my bit to keep that meme from flourishing.

That's true, but a different problem. Nokia may have been wrong, but somebody wandering in into a manufacturing plant and shouting "your smartphones suck" wouldn't have changed the discussion.

A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review is very much intended to challenge a delete which already happened, and that page has guidelines and instructions for starting one. Actually somebody already did it two days ago, because they regard your new cites as more substantive than the junk that was offered last month: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Jessi...