Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia • Hacker News Board

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#51

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:28 AM UTC

chrismonsanto wrote: post #40

jedsmith wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) not cited enough to count I look forward to your explanation, to other academics, of why their work doesn't "count" because it isn't "cited enough". I also look forward to you explaining to us why you're qualified to determine whether a paper that you didn't write "counts". > I honestly didn't think that putting in a few AfDs would cause such a shitstorm, to the point where people are calling me a Nazi/asshole/w…

It's not that their work doesn't "count" in the more general sense of the word, it's that their work has not had enough impact at the moment to establish the notability of the topic. I'm sure the researchers in question did fine work, and in the future their work will be widely recognized. I'm as qualified as any other PL researcher (or Wikipedian) to determine the validity of a source. I didn't delete the articles b…

[deleted]

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#52

Post by Locke1689 » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:29 AM UTC

chrismonsanto wrote: post #40

jedsmith wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) not cited enough to count I look forward to your explanation, to other academics, of why their work doesn't "count" because it isn't "cited enough". I also look forward to you explaining to us why you're qualified to determine whether a paper that you didn't write "counts". > I honestly didn't think that putting in a few AfDs would cause such a shitstorm, to the point where people are calling me a Nazi/asshole/w…

It's not that their work doesn't "count" in the more general sense of the word, it's that their work has not had enough impact at the moment to establish the notability of the topic. I'm sure the researchers in question did fine work, and in the future their work will be widely recognized. I'm as qualified as any other PL researcher (or Wikipedian) to determine the validity of a source. I didn't delete the articles b…

I'm as qualified as any other PL researcher (or Wikipedian) to determine the validity of a source.

Meh, as a researcher and grad student myself I wouldn't say that. You earn the qualification to judge notability of scholarly works after defending your dissertation and publishing significant work for the community. That's kind of how the system works.

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#53

Post by chrismonsanto » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:30 AM UTC

kevbin wrote: post #41

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…

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 because I proposed Nemerle for deletion.

I disagree that the clean up is detrimental to Wikipedia. I like to browse Wikipedia for new programming languages, and 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 :(

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#54

Post by pvg » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:31 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #32

pvg wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Only mentioned in conference proceedings' is actually a fairly decent criterion for exclusion from a general encyclopedia - which is the sort of thing all the deletionist/notability teacup storms revolve around. The importance of conference proceedings in distributing CS research doesn't seem particularly relevant.

> The importance of conference proceedings in distributing CS research doesn't seem particularly relevant. So, because computer science does things differently from other fields, it is at fault?

What? You seem to be very focused on being upset about something and I can't quite follow what it is. Have you read any of the endless verbiage on notability?

There is a (hotly debated, etc, etc) wikipedia policy that article topics have to be 'notable'. If a topic is only covered in academic literature, one can make a perfectly sensible argument that it's obscure and not 'notable' enough for a general encyclopedia.

You don't have to agree with the policy (I, personally, am totally indifferent to the whole topic) but you write as if the very idea that something that's only mentioned in conference proceedings is obscure (CS or not, doesn't seem all that relevant either) is somehow irrational and worthy of great indignation.

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#55

Post by ubernostrum » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:32 AM UTC

l0nwlf wrote: post #21

ubernostrum wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: I left a note for the guy asking why he doesn't do that (hunt up citations and improve articles). His response was to go complain about how "ironic" that was on some other well-known deletionist's page, and whine about how he's "martyring" himself for Wikipedia. In other words: there's basically no reasoning with the guy who's behind this.

Because : "He will not reply to senseless accusations any longer. Don't bother nominating him for conflict of interest or vandalism or whatnot, it's already been tried and didn't work."

Funny. I didn't make senseless accusations, didn't nominate him for anything. Just asked, matter-of-factly, why he was putting his energy into AfDs instead of into looking up references and trying to improve articles.

At which point (check his history if you care), he wandered over to another user's page to recruit help, saying:

One commenter even suggested I search for references to improve the articles in question, as opposed to nominating them for deletion (the sheer irony).

So, yeah, apparently asking him to channel his energies into something that's one of Wikipedia's main goals is "ironic" as well as "senseless"?

Sticking with my original conclusion that this is not someone who responds well to reason.

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#56

Post by bad_user » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:35 AM UTC

chrismonsanto wrote: post #23

jacques_chester wrote: post #6

Here's the main offender: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Christopher_Monsanto One of his arguments is that these languages are often only mentioned in conference proceedings. How you get to be a PhD student in computer science without realising that conference proceedings are the leading distribution mechanism for knowledge in the CS research world is a mystery. I may only be a humble honours student, but the cent…

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…

Nemerle is a beautiful example of a programming language that lets the programmer hook into the compiler's pipeline and add arbitrary new syntax.

For example, here's what the developer needs to do to add the LINQ syntax (introduced in C# 3.0): http://nemerle.googlecode.com/svn/nemerle/trunk/Linq/

It definitely belongs to Wikipedia simply because it's an interesting language, that doesn't have an easy replacement. It's of special interest to language designers looking for ideas or for students learning about programming languages.

Also, comparing the Nemerle page to your would-be biography on Wikipedia is pretty lame, as people would actually learn something when reading about Nemerle.

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#57

Post by rick_2047 » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:36 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #30

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…

> 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? So now we need two levels of notability. First you must be published and you must have "impact". How is this "impact" thing defined, by the way? Are you agitating for an agreed bibliometric standard for notabi…

You action was a necessary cause of their deletion and therefore you are one of the directly culpable persons destroying the long tail of knowledge.

I am no expert here, but does one person tagging something for deletion make such an impact? He must have convinced the administrators by only good arguments (like lawyer arguments, which are not necessarily moral or anything, just good enough to win the case).

If we can trust the administrators for putting up something, we should trust them for taking something down.

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#58

Post by jacques_chester » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:38 AM 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…

Isn't this actually an argument for a better UI for wikipedia?

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#59

Post by chrismonsanto » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:38 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #45

chrismonsanto wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that their work doesn't "count" in the more general sense of the word, it's that their work has not had enough impact at the moment to establish the notability of the topic. I'm sure the researchers in question did fine work, and in the future their work will be widely recognized. I'm as qualified as any other PL researcher (or Wikipedian) to determine the validity of a source. I didn't delete the articles b…

I don't know if I am accusing you of bad faith or not, by wikipedia standards. I just find that your approach (move to delete without, so far as I can tell, trying to directly improve the entries) to be destructive to wikipedia's purpose of expanding the availability and interconnectedness of knowledge. Why was wikipedia, and the public at large, better served by deleting these entries?

So many people create pet programming languages and add them to Wikipedia that the PL lists and categories are essentially useless. Most of the languages I propose for deletion have almost no information available about them, and therefore, one can't write a useful Wikipedia article about them. More information isn't necessarily better.

Anything I am not 95% sure about I add a notability tag to or simply leave alone. There are a number of articles that I did in fact find interesting citations for while trying to decide notability. Napier88 is a good example of such a language -- the papers on it received hundreds of citations, yet I had never heard of the language. I've been working on an entire rewrite of Napier88 in my spare time, which has understandably become even more "spare" recently :)

Re: Programming languages are being deleted from Wikipedia

#60

Post by jedsmith » Mon, Feb 14, 2011, 5:40 AM UTC

oconnore wrote: post #43

chrismonsanto wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to do that! The problem is that for the articles I nominated, no citations exist :(

That statement is false. Take Factor for example. It has been hosted at several conferences, has an active community of users, and has an academic paper published in ACM. http://factorcode.org/littledan/dls.pdf Perhaps what you meant to say is that no citations exist that meet your own apparently arbitrary standards of approval? Edit: It appears that it was another individual who recommended wiki/Factor for deletion.…

Or that he didn't spend enough time looking:

> 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.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2215437

Reassuring description of the process, there...