Wikiwatch, Round II
Posted February 6th, 2007 by Howard Tayler
Let me begin with a clarification: Wikipedia does not have an editorial board. It has individual editors, a few of whom have been promoted to administrators. Apparently at least a few of these editors are Schlock readers. At least one of them is a personal friend.
Numerous Wikipedians have commented or emailed to tell me “we have a policy, it’s being adhered to” and as of late last night the articles for Evil Inc. and Superosity were restored.
The policy would therefore appear to be “editors are free to act out of ignorance or even malice, until public scrutiny is trained upon them, at which time another editor may fix the damage.”
Nice.
How about an apology for the mistakes? Would that kill you? Admitting you were wrong, hasty, or uninformed would go a long way toward convincing contributors that editors are not vindictive, spiteful, agenda-driven tyrants. I hear a lot about “burden of proof” from Wikipedia editors. Well, the burden of proof is now on YOU. Convince us. I’ll go ahead and post the apology here, or at least link to the “talk” page.
See the eyeball, Wikipedians? Well, it sees YOU. Police yourselves more effectively, or folks like me will have to expose your folly again. Most of us don’t have time to be editors, but we can tell when the editors are screwing up.
Wikipedia is too wonderful, too useful, and too full of promise to be allowed to continue to slide into the control of petty editorial fiefdoms.
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February 6th, 2007 at 9:46 am
“Wikipedia is too wonderful, too useful, and too full of promise to be allowed to continue to slide into the control of petty editorial fiefdoms.”
Wasn’t this the whole point of Wikipedia? To avoid editors deciding what is and isn’t meaningful/relevant/worthy of space?
Looks like they’re doing a bang up job.
Oh, wait, they’re not.
February 6th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Well, that depends on your definition of “bang-up” I suppose. You could compare it to doing a “bang-up” job of commuting in heavy traffic.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:09 am
wikipedia editors are arseholes. i added 1 link for a useful site to one of their articles and they went on a little tirade by deleting all my additions in one day (something like 47 edits over 4 weeks deleted and one article deleted just because one editor was pissed at me).
they even deleted my user page.
they claim original research [OR] which seems to be the standard excuse for deleting stuff. forget about the fact that this was well established information and not research…i’ve given up on wikipedia. i recommend you do the same. its just a bunch of stupid fascists who seem to have gotten control of it.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Wikipedia is a free service with very little control, short of revoking an editors access(which they do on occasion).
As such, the only apology your owed is from the person who deleted your entry. As I understand it, those edits are tracked, so if something upsets you you can actually contact the individual directly and ask for an explanation or apology.
They have a dispute process, but it is not really reasonable to expect them to know every bit of trivia in the world. If an editor deletes something, all they can do is look at the reason why the editor claims. If you dispute that reason, then another editor could look into it.
As an analogy, your site contains ads by Google. Ads you have very little control over. Should you be expected to apologise if a product is advertised on your website which turns out to be faulty? Personally, I don’t think so. But it would be consistent with expecting an apology from ‘Wikipedia’ for an individuals actions.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Garyamort: You’re not helping WP’s case, you know. All you’re saying is “nobody is responsible enough to feel obligated to apologize for what’s gone wrong.” That sounds an awful lot like what I said, except that you added the accusation of irresponsibility.
And, for the record, if one of my advertisers screws one of my readers, I want to hear about it, because I WILL accept a certain measure of responsibility — I’ll block those ads, and apologize for connecting my readers with that vendor.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Um,
Did you _read_ the old Evil Inc page? It was basically content-free, providing no clue as to why it was important. I could write a similar page for my D&D game. The idea is that the site should justify its own inclusion. How else should things be evaluated for deletion? Or should everything be there? If not, where is the line?
We (and I include myself) argued that, it was relevant and should have a page. And now it does, and this time it will end up being done right (or it will get deleted again).
System worked as it was suppose to IMO. The base mistake was that the old page didn’t justify its own existence. It is required to do so as I (now) understand these things. Seems reasonable really. These folks doing the editing are volunteers and can’t be expected to use anything other than the entry to figure out if the entry should be there. Asking for an apology is uncalled for IMO.
Old page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Evil_Inc.&oldid=103052000
Mark
February 6th, 2007 at 11:14 am
I’ve notified the person who deleted the Superosity article of this. However, having seen what the Evil Inc. article looked like when it was deleted, I do not see any procedural problems with it. The only indication of its importance that was provided during five days of deletion discussion was ‘notable by association’. That it was undeleted once somebody noted its circulation via the Philadelphia Daily News proves that the system Works™.
(Howard and others, I don’t want to offend; I just thought the above information might be interesting.)
February 6th, 2007 at 11:27 am
The problem with Wikipedia is that an article is not rated on its accuracy, it’s instead rated on its “notability” and “neutrality”. Frankly, given the miniscule amount of storage space required to store a Wiki entry, there should be no notability requirement whatsoever. The only requirement should be that the presented information is correct. Of course, this would require the Wiki admins to recognize experts.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:34 am
So, as of this count, hobit, xyzzy_n, and Garyamort continue to take the “we don’t need to apologize” stance.
Keep ‘em coming, guys. You’re making my case for me.
Buoyancy: I’m with you on this, but it’s really too much to expect editors who lack the responsibility to apologize for their failure to adhere to policy or address their own ignorance to actually CHANGE policy.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Buoyancy, it’s isn’t as much notability that’s a requirement as verifiability. However, something needs to be beyond a certain minimum notability before anything about it is verifiable.
I think Wikipedia is founded on good ideas. However, like most here, I think it’s been badly abused more often than it has ever been used correctly. The flaw in writing policies so that even idiots can follow them is the writer can never succeed at predicting all the ways an idiot can screw things up.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:40 am
After Howard’s last comment (which I guess he wrote while I was writing mine), I just want to add that I don’t think the proper response is to do another round of idiot-proofing the policies. I think the only rational response is to purge the idiots from Wikipedia.
(And, to be blunt: Yes, I think the idiots should apologize. However, I think they should still be purged, especially if they’ve made this sort of error repeatedly, so ultimately I don’t care if they apologize or not.)
February 6th, 2007 at 11:42 am
sdfisher: That kind of apology is referred to euphemistically as “falling on your sword,” and would be both appropriate and acceptable. It’ll never happen, because volunteers so seldom expect to be held accountable for their mistakes (much less hold themselves accountable), but it’s a nice thought.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:51 am
I’m afraid I remain unimpressed by the defense that “the system works.”
First, I feel that the notability policy is flawed. The exclusion of web-sources for defense of notability is foolish. I also don’t see a problem with “notable by association.” I think the fact that the strip was a spin-off of the acceptably notable Greystone Inn should be enough.
Second, I disagree that the sole burden of proof for notability should rest with the defenders. Why can’t the editors be expected to use anything other than the entry to figure out if the entry should be there? I’m sorry, but being a volunteer is not an excuse for doing a lazy job. If the goal is really to make Wikipedia a useful compendium of information on any subject, an editor should make an effort to determine if an entry is a mere vanity page before marking for deletion.
Finally, I’ve heard too many people from many different areas of interest, not just web-comics, complain that they have tried to work within the system, only to have their efforts dismissed by people who consider their entire area of interest to be not notable (even in the face of officially acceptable evidence).
Wikipedia does not seem to acknowledge that their policies need review. If it can’t turn a critical eye on itself, it will make itself irrelevant and squander a wonderful potential
February 6th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Well… I wasn’t going to say it, but I don’t need to apologise. I was neither aware of the actions being criticised here when they happened nor involved in them. You might as well ask me for an apology about the flooding in Jakarta. (I didn’t do that, either!)
By the way, the expert approach was used in Nupedia. I’ve yet to see a conclusive analysis of why Nupedia didn’t work well (specifically, whether the main problem was its operating model or the demise of the dot-com bubble), so maybe it’s worthwhile to try it again. Only not on Wikipedia, please—fork the content to a new website.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
xyzzy_n: You obviously missed my point. Sure, you personally did nothing wrong. We could get a thousand editors to post the same thing here — “I did nothing wrong, I refuse to apologize for the actions of others.”
This is called “finger pointing,” only without the actual finger.
When I worked at Novell I was frequently put in front of hostile customers whose problems were 100% outside of my control. I accepted responsibility anyway, tackled the problem (usually by tackling those in whose control the problem WAS), and apologized.
Why? Because I cared about the organization for which I worked. I felt personally responsible for the overall health of the company, and I did everything within my power to address concerns.
So far we’ve heard from nobody at Wikipedia who cares that much. Maybe it’s an organizational sickness, and all editors are specifically disempowered, and prevented from making those kinds of statements. Still, coming out and saying “I’m really sorry this happened, I’ll look into it, I know the editor responsible, etc…” seems pretty reasonable.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
maybe it’s worth a try but don’t try it here take it somewhere else nice and open i see
hell you want to see bickering read the wal-mart entry i work there i know it aint the best thing going but i have had a lot worse jobs that payed a lot less and half their criticisms on the main article are half the facts they never mention thet the health insurance is opt-in not automatic and despite what is said it is good insurance (anyone that questions this can take a look at my $90,000+ heart repair surgery that cost me $2,100 out of pocket) and for thoes that don’t know unions always say they will get you a “better deal” they never mention that first they want a cut of your money then they’ll work on that “better deal” wiki wouldn’t know neutraity if it shit on their collective foot
*burns the soap box* sorry bout that didn’t mean to start randomly gripeing
juenger1701
February 6th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
It’s the ‘organisational sickness’; I know from another (unrelated) incident that many Wikipedia editors are uncomfortable with having other editors make statements representing the community or themselves. We have neither a corporate structure nor any kind of contract with the Wikimedia Foundation (the organisation which actually owns Wikipedia’s servers). People come, people leave and, unlike the engineers(?) at Novell, people do not expect or condone that somebody, somewhere, is apologising for something they do.
Effectively, I would address concerns about others’ actions and I do care about Wikipedia; I also know the editor responsible and I am sorry you are upset about what that editor did, but I cannot apologise for that.
February 6th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
“How else should things be evaluated for deletion? Or should everything be there?”
Yes! Give that man a cookie, because you have hit on the answer that everyone ELSE wants from wikipedia: EVERYTHING should be in there, relevance and notability be damned. If something can be shown to be WRONG, it should be taken down, but if it isn’t wrong, leave it alone!
February 6th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
xyzzy_n: man, you are SOOOO CLOSE to issuing an actual apology. “I’m sorry you’re upset” is not the same thing as “I’m sorry this happened.” You know the editor responsible, you care about Wikipedia, and yet you can’t bring yourself to say “I’m sorry this happened, I’m working to fix it.” You could even add “it’s not my fault, but I want to see things made right.” That adds moral high ground that you desperately need.
Really, I appreciate everything you editors do right, but until you develop a sense of moral responsibility that goes beyond “I’m not my brothers’ keeper,” you will continue to get vilified.
February 6th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
The moral high ground gets shelled.
I’ll gladly add that ‘it’s not my fault, but I want to see things made right’ and I would say ‘I’m working to fix it’ if that was true (I’ve never read the comic or anything about the comic other than the Wikipedia article, so I’d have to study before I could contribute anything other than a copyedit), but I stand by my statement that ‘I cannot apologise for that.’
February 6th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
HT:
So, as of this count, hobit, xyzzy_n, and Garyamort continue to take the “we don’t need to apologize” stance.
Keep ‘em coming, guys. You’re making my case for me.
———–
Dude, I’m not an editor at Wikipedia. Well, I’ve edited a handful of things by fixing an obvious error, but I’m guessing you are as much an editor as I am at that point. I learned about the deletion process because I read Evil Inc. and the deletion annoyed me. (And I read SM and have for years).
What I want to know is _what_ do you think was done wrong? You understand that Wikipedia articles are required to meet certain criteria? Do you disagree with the criteria? Do you disagree with the fact that things _can_ be deleted? Do you think e-mail should be sent out to anyone who might care? Do you think someone deleting an article should be required to do research beyond the article itself?
You seem annoyed it happened, but I’m unclear how you think things should work….
February 6th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
could someone give an ‘in a nutshell’ synopsis>? the way I understand it, a volunteer editor removed a small article about a web comic, without giving a reason. The article was neither offensive, nor particularly informative. The article, in somewhat improved form, has been restored. People (like Howard??) are offended that the article was, without clear reason or process, initially removed. People are also offended that no-one seems to be taking responsibility for (and this is the part I am not sure about) either upsetting them by removing the article, or for the actual act of removing the article.
whew. Not sure if I got that right. sometimes, in a long discussion, it is helpful to hear ‘where we are’
February 6th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
By way of explanation:
1) I’m not offended by the deletion of the article.
2) I take issue with the fact that article deletion is rapid, and requires little work, while article creation takes hours of research, writing, and formatting.
3) Frankly, I think that Wikipedia’s current mission (as outlined in articles explaining what it is not) falls far short of what it could be, and what many of its original editors thought it was — myself included.
4) I saw two camps in here: wikipedia editors, who fall back on policy and accept no personal responsibility in the matter, and everybody else who looks at what’s going on and says “that ain’t right.” I take real issue with THAT.
The article is back now, and it’s much better than it used to be. Improving the article should not have required a public mud-slinging event, though. And there are thousands of other deleted articles out there which we would all benefit from having undeleted and improved, but the current process doesn’t really support that. They’re just gone, and their original authors have been browbeaten to the point that they are anti-Wikipedians.
If Wikipedia’s current suite of editors and administrators really care about what they’re doing, they’ll work harder to enamor themselves of their customers — even if that means apologizing for the mistakes of others.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Ollie:
could someone give an ‘in a nutshell’ synopsis>?
—————-
I’ll try. (Evil Inc only)
The article on Evil Inc was tagged for possible deletion on Jan 25th. After a fairly limited discussion (5 people) it was deleted on the 30th. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Evil_Inc.
On Feb 3rd, there was a request to review the deletion. There was an overwhelming desire to remove the deletion. On Feb 6th it appears to have been undeleted.
Process was, AFAIK, followed. (I’m new at this).
February 6th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Opps… The end of the last post should have included:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:DRV#Evil_Inc.
as a link.
Mark
February 6th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
On 4), I beg to consider that some people (myself included) contribute to Wikipedia not only because of what it is but also because of what it is not. I have yet to see a debate about how much material to include with a rational conclusion, and I have seen quite a few; it is, apparently, a matter of personal preference.
Given the wiki on comixpedia.org for webcomics and related material and everything2.com for anything at all, I do not see a shortage of places where to put material that is rejected on Wikipedia. (everything2.com seems to be down at the moment, but it has a Wikipedia article.)
February 6th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Ollie:
It’s not just one article, it’s basically a running process. Hundreds of comics (some admittedly non-notable) have been deleted, and point in fact, even huge comics like Penny Arcade and Sluggy Freelance had to argue with the Wikipedia editors in order to be kept.
This latest culling included some fifty or sixty comics that we know of; some, like “A Doemain of our Own” aren’t really all that notable, and others, like “Movie Punks” and “Return to Sender” have been dead or ended for years, but in the example of Evil, Inc, it’s current, it (and it’s “Greystone” precursor) has been online for seven years nearly daily, and it’s printed in a major metropolitan newspaper.
Adding fuel to the fire, Evil’s article has been deleted at least once more *after* citations as to it’s notability were provided.
And to top it all off, it seems clear that Wiki and it’s appointed editors are uninterested in changing said at-a-whim requirements, making “notability” a moving target for those that want or have a Wiki article.
Doc.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
Several years ago I wrote a series of Wikipedia articles on a book series (Glen Cook’s Black Company, if anyone’s interested). After the articles were posted I didn’t look at them for a long time. About six months ago, I called up one of the articles and discovered it had been deleted. Upon further checking, I found that all of the seven articles I had posted were gone. Instead, there was the following notice:
“This article about a fantasy book is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.”
I complained to the wikileadership and was told that my articles had been found “unsatisfactory” and were therefore deleted Huh? I wrote three or four paragraph plot summaries of some books. I didn’t use foul language, I didn’t editorialize, I didn’t even criticize the books, I just gave plot summaries.
BTW, I had never been notified in any way that my articles were unsatisfactory and I still don’t know what was unsatisfactory about them. Articles on the first three books of the series, written by someone else, are still in existence.
February 6th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Saying again:
I’m waiting for people to start deleting editors as “non-notable.” Degree in anything relevant? Published? Quoted? Who the heck are you to edit an encyclopedia?
In fact, that’s a good idea for slapping down hubris.
Now, I have recommended a garage band’s article for deletion, based on the fact that they have no sales, no contract, no gigs at named clubs. Some fan defended them as “creating a whole new genre.” Neat. When that new genre gets reviewed in some kind of music mag, and the band mentioned, we’ll include them. (I had a listen. It was typical faux-meaningful high school punk with nothing to recommend it.) EVERY high school band believes they’re guaranteed to be megastars. Look at the legions of losers on American Idol…
At the same time, the band was “notable” enough that someone who cares about them checked Wiki within 24 hours and saw the recommendation for deletion and protested. Perhaps bandwidth of the articles could also be a consideration?
And I’ve seen mention that webcomics that no longer exist should not have entries. Well, of course, since Lil Abner doesn’t have an entry…oh, wait…
Some of the editors justify their existence scouring for stuff to delete. Well, that job needs done. But how about suggesting edits, or at least (as I did with the band), do a few googles before suggesting deletion? Deleting “The Whiteboard” is not the same as deleting “Ball Sweat.” (Yes, that’s a real one. Check the deletion debate for 1 Feb.)
February 6th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Howard doesn’t seem to understand the scale Wikipedia works on. There are 1,632,000+ articles. There are over a hundred thousand active editors. There are more than a thousand administrators.
Who do you want the apology from?
February 6th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Carnildo: I want an apology with an “I won’t do it again” from every single “editor” who feels his duty at wikipedia is solely to delete information that someone else thought was useful and interesting. The only criteria for deletion of articles should be things such as “defamation” and “dead wrong information.” Who exactly does it *hurt* to have an article on the Wiki about each and every garage band who has put together a website?
February 7th, 2007 at 12:20 am
Carnildo: Obviously, I’m not Howard, but I did read Howard’s last couple of comments above. I’m going to say the answer to your question is:
Any of them.
At this point, not one self-proclaimed editor has come out and said “You know, the system is broken, and it failed here. I’m going to work to fix it.”
I’m sure that out of the “hundred thousand active editors”, there has got to be at least one who feels this way. But none have come forward to say so.
Instead, we hear that the system worked correctly. You know, where I come from, when a correctly-working system screws up this badly, it’s time to re-evaluate the system’s design.
February 7th, 2007 at 12:29 am
Okay, wordpress needs a ‘Preview Comment’ button.
I’d like to add that one question raised here I’ve never seen answered is why must editors delete articles at all, for notability or anything short of being completely made-up?
I apologize for not being in on the ground floor when wikipedia policies were written, but does the hundreds of kb worth of WP:foo pages describe why Wikipedia must be limited to only 1,632,000+ articles, and must be trimmed? Howard and others here bring up a good point about the long tail containing hundreds of millions or more articles, and editors requesting that posts be expanded rather than deleted. I have yet to see a response to that point.
What WP policy requires that articles be deleted with such expediency?
February 7th, 2007 at 12:36 am
Wikipedia is what it is, it has a mission statement, if it doesn’t want to be what you want it to be, make your own website to be that. I don’t see how anyone who works on Wikipedia owes anyone an apology unless they deleted an article out of malice or against the Wikipedia rules, and it does not appear that happened.
If any of the people who are complaining about the deletion of the article had cared enough to edit the article and fix it up to standard, it wouldn’t have been deleted. The fixed one that was deleted was due as far as I can tell to process not being followed; as one person put it in the talk page, edit it or contest the deletion, don’t try to do both at the same time. Editing was chosen and the article is back.
I do not think it incontestibly asserts notability yet; I was researching to try to find additional references.
It’s disingenuous to claim to want apologies from any and every wikipedia editor, Howard, while simultaneously admitting being a wikipedia editor yourself. Why not apologize on wikipedia’s behalf to Guigar yourself? Same thing with none - admitting to being a wikipedia editor and adding a link, then saying wikipedia editors are arseholes.
It’s not like people who work for Novell. Everyone who edits an article, even once, is a wikipedia editor. Even everyone who doesn’t, is a potential wikipedia editor.
What you really want, it sounds like, is for the *deletionist faction* of the wikipedia editors to apologize to you. Now that, I could even somewhat get behind. The deletionist faction goes overboard pretty often. In my fairly short list of wikipedia edits, I can with some assurance say that quite a few were me going out, researching a person or thing I knew little about, and adding references to shore up the claim of notability in the article.
So the deletionists, yea, some of them definitely can be very annoying. But they’re doing what the founder and in some sense official owner of Wikipedia wants. And there really are good reasons to limit articles on Wikipedia to things that have had published information about them. (not just that the things themselves were published).
Chief among this is the desire to have Wikipedia articles have a higher *average* level of quality - so that someone choosing an article at random would be likelier to find an article that had had time and effort spent making it good.
There’s a limited amount of time people spend improving wikipedia articles. If that’s spread out among a probably nearly infinite number of possible articles, as some above would like, at some point you become almost infinitely likely to end up on an article that’s just a plot summary, or a character list from a comic, or even a fairly well written character assassination of a fairly private businessperson, rather than an actual encyclopedia-style article about something notable.
So the deletionists have a very reasonable goal. And if they are not personally into web comics at all, one can see (less every year, but still) how a web comic they never heard of, which appears in one city newspaper and a website, which hasn’t been reviewed in print anywhere they’ve read, might not meet the cut. They might not think there will be enough interest in the topic to make it a worthwhile article. And they’re wrong - it is on its way to being a pretty good article, all things considered.
I think going back and forth about who should apologize and for what is silly. Having an article deleted for a day doesn’t really harm anyone. If it gets more people involved and ends up improving the article, where if it had never been deleted it would still be in worse shape, what harm was done? People were annoyed. Well, the deletionists are always annoyed at spammers, at people creating vanity articles, etc. No one apologizes to them for everything that annoys them, I guess they get used to that and don’t expect it.
Howard, I see your point about ads on the Google website. But what if Google ran an ad on another website, that ended up offending one of your readers, and the reader pointed out that you were using the same ad service that had offended them on that other website. Would you feel like apologizing to that reader on behalf of Google ads and going to battle to make sure that reader was never annoyed by another ad they saw? What if the reason they were annoyed was because they ended up viewing that article and seeing that they’d paid too much for car insurance (a Geico ad ;) )?
Now, you may think I’m ‘part of the problem’ now. Because I’ve made a few typo corrections and added a few references to Wikipedia articles, I’m a wikipedia editor, and I don’t think apologies are in order.
But oddly enough, if I did the same thing and said “yea, those wikipedia editors should apologize to you” - then I’m not part of the problem? even though I’m being hypocritical AND still not apologizing? I don’t get that, honest I don’t.
I like wikipedia, obnoxious deletionists and all. Weeding helps the garden even if you pull up a few actual veggies in the process. Sorry, veggies. The gardeners do try to keep you and let you grow. But some of you will be casualties of the constant war on weeds. This is regrettable, but necessary. Please don’t go on about just letting everything grow, weed or veg; it’s just a fact of life that if you do that, the weeds win out, and you end up having to go to the grocery store for your carrots ;)
February 7th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Felisse:
1) Too long.
2) I’m gone now. Sorry, but it was too long to even bother reading. Learn to be concise.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:33 am
If I might reply in his stead:
Quoth:
“I don’t see how anyone who works on Wikipedia owes anyone an apology unless they deleted an article out of malice or against the Wikipedia rules, and it does not appear that happened.” Endquoth.
“Against Wiki rules” is precisely what happened here, and that’s the problem.
Evil. inc. was deleted, without any apparent “review period”, for being “non-notable”.
I have a hard time seeing how a deletion without warning or review could be anything *but* at least low-grade malice.
I’m not entirely sure, but I believe deletion without a review is against Wiki rules, and even if it isn’t or wasn’t, deleting it *again* AFTER proper citations as to it’s notability- as per Wiki rules again- was most assuredly so.
And that’s the primary issue here: That Wiki and/or it’s editors are not following their own rules.
And by “editors” I don’t mean you and me and Howard who registered a screen name and started editing. I- and I’m sure Howard- mean the admins, those with the power to ban and lock an article, moderators, whatever you want to call them.
It would seem that these are the ones doing the deleting/redeleting, and giving no explanation, excuse, reason or apology apart from simply stating the offensing article was “non notable”.
Your claim for the desire of a higher quality doesn’t jive with the action; “quality” never entered into any of the arguments. The one and only complaint is that the articles in question are not notable, and the one and only action the admins take is to delete it or at least submit it for deletion.
Notability is itself a flawed concept for an encyclopaedia; the whole REASON for a source through which you can look up a subject, is to catalogue and describe any information one might want to look up, from the mundane, to the obscure. The more obscure- meaning ‘less notable’ in Wikispeak- the more useful it is to have that data, as long as it’s correct, in a unified resource.
And to have a *web* resource reject *another* web resource for being non-notable since it’s only citations are on the *web*, is the height of hypocrisy.
Doc.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:38 am
That’s a shame. Felisse’s post was thoughtful and well-written. I’ll try presenting a shorter, less comprehensive argument:
If I wanted to learn some basic information about Schlock Mercenary, or any of thousands of other topics, there’s nowhere else I could find it in such a convenient form. Sure, its open editing policy means that anyone can vandalise or delete an article (usually only for a limited time) - but if it didn’t work that way, those articles wouldn’t exist in the first place.
Whoever is running wikipedia is presumably running it the way they think will work best. If you think otherwise, you can fork the project - it’s licensed under the GFDL, so you can copy the whole thing and run it under a different set of policies. (’Citizendium’ is one such fork, although it’s still in the pilot stage.)
As for requesting an apology … well, frankly, that’s a ridiculous suggestion, at least in the general case. One editor thought that an article didn’t deserve to exist (under wikipedia’s notability policy). You thought otherwise. The issue was opened up to a wider audience, which came down on your side, and the article stayed. That doesn’t mean that an apology is in order. It would be like … say, if you were working in a team environment, and had to apologise every time you made a suggestion that didn’t get adopted. Just because an idea (like deleting an article) didn’t end up being implemented doesn’t mean that it was wrong to suggest it in the first place.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:42 am
DocN, the rules say otherwise. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CSD and in particular criterion Articles 7. Also, the goal of Wikipedia is to collect knowledge, not information, much less data; these terms differ in important ways.
February 7th, 2007 at 4:15 am
Second sentence:
Quoth the Wiki:
“Before nominating an article for speedy deletion, consider whether an article could be improved or reduced to a stub; speedy deletion is for cases where an article does not contain useful content.” Unquoth.
Evil, in particular, was given no consideration to improve before being deleted. I very much doubt that the other fifty or so strips Terrence Marks listed were given such consideration either.
Again, Wiki’s own rules are being interpreted very loosely, or ignored at a whim.
Doc.
February 7th, 2007 at 4:24 am
Clarification:
That is, the fifty or so strips that were deleted recently, as chronicled by Marks in his Comixpedia article.
Also keep in mind that this most recent shuffle is the second or possibly the third major “anti webcomic” sweep. Websnark noted the first such- and the issues involved therein- back in 2005, and there was another round in mid 2006.
Each time the rules were applied arbitrarily and inconsistently. The one good thing to have stemmed from those early purges, was dropping the ludicrous idea of using Alexa- known spyware- as a metric to measure a comic’s perceived worth.
And please, pray tell; define the difference between “knowledge” and “information” for me. At least as you feel Wiki will define it.
Doc.
February 7th, 2007 at 4:46 am
I’m not sure how I would be helping or hurting Wikipedia’s cause.
Wikipedia is what it is, if you expect something else than you ought to apologise to Wikipedia for false expectations.
They make no false claims to containing accurate information, they make no false claims to containing accurate information, and they make no false claims to maintaining good information.
If your upset at Wikipedia for being something it’s not, than now you know what it isn’t. It is a collection of individuals with very little accountability or responsibility who maintain data. it depends on community and human nature to get accurate information. Now, if you think there is a failing in human nature………well, your problem isn’t with Wikipedia, it’s with the design of how humans function, so your issue would be more with another party altogether. :-)
Deleting data as not relevant causes no damage to an individual(unless the individual is counting on the entry to redirects to their website, in which case the fault is their own for counting on free advertising and putting 0 work into maintaining it)
Now, in the case where some editor on a power trip posted blatantly FALSE information to Wikipedia accusing an individual of taking part in an assasination - THAT was a different kettle of fish. There ‘Wikipedia’ owed an apology for containing false allegations. But there is a difference between false allegations, and no information(for the record, I don’t know if Wikipedia did officialy apologise for that, but I think they should have)
To extend my google ad analogy a bit further, you aren’t willing to take full responsibile for a faulty product advertised on your site. But your willing to take some responsibility. Just how much work would you feel is adequete to put into it? Considering all someone will know is that they went to some store and got a faulty product, the store urll they have won’t neccessarily match the google ad(a lot of shady store owners use redirect links, so while you can block http://storename.com from your ads, their ad is still being posted as http://redirect.com/insanelylongurlthatgooglecannotblock
So your choice is to block every advertiser using that redirect service or do nothing(and that assumes the complainer remembers the url he went to, in all likelyhood he will just give you the store url - how much work do you think you ought to put into to track down how he got there? Are you willing to spend a few hours doing searches to locate the offending google ad? Or will you just block the url reported and ask users to notify you if it comes up again so you can block the other urls? Sort of like how Wikipedia asks users to correct their published data.)
I think Wikipedia has plenty of room to improve, and plenty of things to complain about. However, I see a difference between complaining about how it could be better, and complaining about how it failed.
By demanding an apology, you were saying they failed. I don’t see a failure in this case, I see an unreasonable expectation.
Go to Britainicca online and you won’t find many entries at all about webcomics.
Go to Wikipedia and you see a lot of webcomics getting free advertising.
If you want definitive information, you go to Britainica. If you want the pulse of the world, you go to Wikipedia.
February 7th, 2007 at 4:55 am
Oh summary for those who don’t like long posts:
People in glass houses should not throw stones. People who demand apologies for a process they don’t understand should apologise if their not willing to take the time to understand the process to begin with.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:36 am
That’s twelve paragraphs picking the nit of the idea of an apology, and zero words as to how Wiki and/or it’s editors might improve the random, inconsistent, at-a-whim application of their own ruleset.
At this point, all I’d like to know is why a purely-online resource (Wikipedia) demands an *offline* reference to a purely-online resource (webcomics) in order to even start to consider it “notable”.
To heck with an apology, I’ll settle to a non-weaselworded answer to that.
Doc.
February 7th, 2007 at 6:46 am
“At this point, all I’d like to know is why a purely-online resource (Wikipedia) demands an *offline* reference to a purely-online resource (webcomics) in order to even start to consider it ‘notable’.”
Wikipedia generally insists on offline references (plus a small subset of news-type websites with real-world affiliations to news organizations) because they don’t want to spread misinformation. Basically, any crank with a computer can start a website, but only the really dedicated cranks are going to print vanity magazines about their subject of choice.
February 7th, 2007 at 7:28 am
The guideline on notability is an outgrowth of two other policies: “What Wikipedia is not” (WP:NOT), and “Verifiability” (WP:V). The section of the former about an “indiscriminate collection of information” gives the reasons why content should be encyclopedic in nature, and the latter gives the reasons why things have to be absolutely bedrock solid on sourcing before they’re allowed to stay.
To be more specific, let’s say that Wikipedia allowed citations from only extremely popular websites. You’d still be dumping a whole bucket of unreliable crap into articles and making people’s work ten times harder. You’d have Republicans citing Powerline to prove that Hillary Clinton had Vernon Jordan assassinated, and Democrats citing Democratic Underground to prove that George Bush is a closeted homosexual who had an affair with Jeff Gannon. You’d have people citing Deadspin to prove that Stuart Scott is cheating on his wife and Albert Pujols is using steroids.
No system with Wikipedia’s design is ever going to be factually perfect, but they have a responsibility to be as accurate as they can be, and most online sources aren’t reliable. That’s why Wikipedia isn’t allowed to cite itself, just to illustrate one humorous aspect of the whole thing. They don’t want to be in the Happy Fun Slander business, at least not any more than necessary.
February 7th, 2007 at 7:29 am
I think the situations differ in that:
1) It appears Howard was employed to represent Novell, while the various editors who have posted have special authority to speak for Wikipedia, or anybody other than themselves.
2) Howard actually had enough access to be able to tackle the people responsible, where the people who have posted have no more ability to fix the problem than any other person.
Perhaps the deletion problems are a case of frog-boiling, perhaps the best way to draw attention to get it fixed would be to yank up the heat.
February 7th, 2007 at 8:51 am
I have gone and read the policy pages various people have cited, and I am prepared to concede this: it sounds like the original Evil Inc. page as well as others I have seen discussed were appropriate targets for deletion under current policy.
That however opens up a whole new can of worms: Most of the popular culture articles I have read on Wikipedia are appropriate targets for deletion under those rules. Perhaps not on the notability rule, but it is not good for an organization to pick and choose which rules they follow. That’s a big part of what upsets me, and I suspect a lot of other people. We look and we say “why this article and not that one” and there’s no good answer.
And no, I am not going to start on a rampage of deleting articles to prove a point because that would be petty and childish, even if it weren’t also against Wikipedia policy.
What Wikipedia needs, in my opinion:
- A better or more prominent statement of what it is than the one sentence introduction to the page on what it is not.
- A serious continuing reexamination of whether policies work toward making it what it should be instead of just preventing it from being what it shouldn’t.
- A culture of applying all rules equally and consistently to all subject areas.
And for those who few who have said in effect “if you don’t like it go somewhere else” be careful what you wish for. Wikipedia is still the best game in town for what it does, but if the people dedicated to it won’t do a little self-examination that won’t last long.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:09 am
I am a Wikipedia editor (with 500 or so mainspace edits).
The process is broken. Not just for webcomics, but other things as well; the furry community is about to lose a page about one of its institutions for very similar reasons.
I wish I could fix it. However, anyone who’s not in the In Crowd has no hope of actually affecting policy.
I’d apologize, but 1) I don’t speak for anything meaningful within Wikipedia, and 2) I could make no promise at all that things would change.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Wikipedia should take down the article about itself as non-notable then. They are nothing more than a large, popular website, and every news article I’ve ever read about it calls into question its legitimacy. In effect, they are a dumping bucket for unreliable crap being put into articles by ANYONE with a spare minute. If they are too good to reference other websites with the same problems with facts, why waste space on themselves? Untill they live up to their high and mighty goal of being a recognized and legitmate source, they have no right to have an entry.
Alternatively, they could just let webcomics, which are works of fiction, not political rhetoric, have their own entries.
February 7th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Re rehn_de:
If “The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” (Abraham Lincoln, IIRC), then perhaps the best way to fix Wikipedia’s deletion policy fixed would be to issue a deletion request for every article less notable than (some article you think was unfairly deleted for non-notability), and to support deletion requests for the same.
February 7th, 2007 at 11:20 am
DocN, the information of a datum is the logarithm of the reciprocal of the probability of receiving it. The datum is known (i. e. an item of knowledge) iff if it is true and believed and would not be believed if it was false. There are other definitions, but there is always a stark difference between these terms. You can find these and other definitions in the relevant Wikipedia articles.
As for the Evil Inc. article, it was deleted by the AFD process (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AFD): a deletion discussion was opened and a tag linking to it was placed prominently in the article. The discussion was closed after the standard length of five days and the article was deleted based on the contributions to the discussion. Above, I was referring to the process by which the Superosity article was deleted. Sorry for not making that clear at the time.
By the way, there seems to be some confusion about whether online sources are usable. Some are; for example, the websites of the BBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, various websites run by scholars, online versions of reliable offline content. Not all offline sources are reliable; for example, The Sun, North Korean leaflets and books and journals written by cranks. Offline citations are good, but not absolutely necessary; however, posts on forums, blogs and Usenet and personal websites are generally useless.
February 7th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
“Most of the popular culture articles I have read on Wikipedia are appropriate targets for deletion under those rules.”
This is a good expression of what I call the “can’t do everything at once” problem. On a very real level, it’s all just a big game of whack-a-mole. Problems tend to get fixed as soon as they’re spotted, but there are always more problems to fix (and there probably always will be).
“If they are too good to reference other websites with the same problems with facts, why waste space on themselves?”
Because Wikipedia’s entry doesn’t have a problem with facts. Wikipedia itself has been the subject of media coverage from reliable external sources, and thus meets its own guidelines for sourcing and website notability.
That some of these articles are critical just means that there’s enough material to support additional satellite articles on the topic, such as “Criticism of Wikipedia”.
February 7th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
“Chief among this is the desire to have Wikipedia articles have a higher *average* level of quality”
BWUAHAhaahahahahaahaaaaa
While any idiot can edit, that is by definition impossible.
Oh, and the Washington P/r/a/v/d/a/ Post “reliable”? Certainly not on any military debate, nor most political ones. I think we all know how well they report science.
So are we going by “reference in a journal that’s been around for XX amount of time/has $XXX budget/is known by XXX people”?
Wikipedia itself fails all three.
February 7th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Yes, the Washington Post is considered reliable. If it gets things wrong, other reliable sources can be cited to demonstrate that.
Suppose the Washington Post says that the United States has decided to stop the export of F-14 parts over concern that the parts could be used by Syria to modernise its F-14 fleet. (This is an entirely fictional example.)
Of course Syria has never had an F-14 fleet and the Washington Post is wrong, so we cite Jane’s Insert Fancy Title Here and GlobalSecurity.org’s entry to substantiate that. Done.
On a related note, as a matter of policy, Wikipedia does not consider itself a reliable source for the purpose of citations in Wikipedia articles.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
There have been good responses to some of my points, and I think for my part we’re getting down to differences of opinion. So I’m going to sum up and then shut up (I promise).
There are two problems being discussed. First there is a perception that the Wikipedia policies are not applied consistently, and that some areas of interest have these policies misapplied significantly more often than others. If this perception is true, Wikipedia has a cultural problem. If it is false, Wikipedia has a public relations problem. Either way, the risk to Wikipedia is that the perception will spread to the point that they lose both users and editors.
The second problem is that there is a disagreement about whether the policies as they stand are appropriate or not. Constructive debate on this point is hampered, in my opinion, by the lack of a prominent clear official statement of what Wikipedia is supposed to be. (If I’m missing something obvious, I apologize, but I don’t find this in either the Wikipedia entry in Wikipedia or in the editorial policy guide). While the presence of this statement would not guarantee consensus, it would provide a needed common ground for debate.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
“(If I’m missing something obvious, I apologize, but I don’t find this in either the Wikipedia entry in Wikipedia or in the editorial policy guide).”
I think that this page probably comes as close as anything to what you’re describing, though this one is similar in some respects as well.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Just out of curiosity, Mike, what do you think of your Wikipedia page?
February 7th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
I know there is one, and for some of my books and characters. As I’m not going to comment on myself (How gauche, as well as non-neutral) I make a point not to go there. I did update Bill Fawcett’s entry yesterday, though I didn’t manage to footnote properly.
Actually, Survivalblog was linking my sig on entries to Wikipedia, which I thought was interesting. I asked to have to link directly to my site instead. May as well go straight to the source in this case. Though I suppose if I get well enough known to be controversial my Wiki entry will be more interesting.
February 9th, 2007 at 12:07 am
Interestingly enough, apparently local newspapers and local TV news aren’t sufficient to prove notability.
Fandemonium was covered in several local newspapers, and had a segment on the local evening news of every single network affiliate (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox)
But this was not enough to prove notability. And the Fandemonium article was deleted.
Nice.
February 9th, 2007 at 5:44 am
Hi! I’ve noticed your participation in the AFD discussion. If you had cited specific articles in newspapers, you would have had a better chance of having it kept. It is unreasonable to assume that others will do this work for you, especially if you are already in a better position to do such research.
February 9th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Writing concise prose that will open a crack in someone’s wall of denial and conviction is an art I have yet to master. I’ll give it a go though.
short version: IMHO ‘wiki editors’ = everybody. Deletionists are who you don’t like. Deletionists are admittedly obnoxious, and I am not one of em; still, they have a point. Gardens need weeding or weeds take over. Wiki rules *were* followed, read them more carefully, they are long and boring like me though ;)
If you want to *argue* with the above, please read the long version for details so you don’t misinterpret what I mean. Conciseness leaves out a lot of precision.
Oh and your post in reply to me was too long, too. Would’ve sufficed to say “TLDR” (Too Long Didn’t Read).
February 9th, 2007 at 9:55 am
The problem with the defense: “The rules were followed” is that only lawyers and other pedantic types tend to consider it a compelling argument. It’s particularly bad when somebody suggests that the notability criteria for an online encyclopedia does not, perhaps, need to require offline sources, and some person of less than stellar intellect simply repeats the notability criteria as if were a watertight argument.
February 9th, 2007 at 10:52 am
The reason lawyers find that defence compelling is that they realise that a large distributed system with very limited shared state in which the cost of communications rises quickly with both distance and number of recipients (with the worst case of a broadcast being prohibitively expensive) cannot run solely on individual arguments such as ‘I like it’ or ‘Is this hurting anybody?’ and must instead rely on rules and enforce non-Byzantine behaviour. To assume otherwise is silly.
And, really, what use has an encyclopaedia written by non-pedantic types?
February 9th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
A large distributed communication system gains value with the square of the number of people connected to it. This is basic networking theory, and is the reason that the Internet has value. I’d like you to provide some kind of actual argument to support your first paragraph, since all you’ve actually done is assert that it’s the truth with no supporting evidence.
An encyclopedia written by non-pedantic people has a great deal of value, since it won’t be bogged down in worthless debates about whether a particular topic is notable enough to be included. The topic will simply be included, verified for accuracy, and then left alone till somebody feels like improving it. Since there’s no practical limit to the amount of information that could be included in Wikipedia, and since information becomes more valuable with more links between topics, the entire project would become far more useful. It’s not like Wikipedia is capable of being an authoritative source or replacing print encyclopedias, since there is nobody who is ultimately responsible for correcting errors.
Pedants are by definition incapable of contributing anything useful to such a project, as they spend more time worrying about rules than producing useful content.
February 9th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I’d post a paper, but 1) there is not enough space in this margin, 2) wot no LaTeX? and 3) I don’t want to offend Howard again (further?).
Wikipedia collects knowledge, not information. Specifically, it collects knowledge that has been published and can be shown to have influenced other knowledge. This is a basic objective and since Wikipedia is only one of many projects doing similar things, it is not at all useful to argue against it. In fact Wikipedia does aim to replace traditional encyclopaedias, by the assertion that ‘given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow’ (Raymond). It will possibly not succeed (thus refuting the assertion, at least in the context of encyclopaedias, but that doesn’t mean the attempt should not be made.
For an alternative, see http://everything2.com/ (now back online).
February 9th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Could you, as a bog-standard Wikipedia apologist, please stop suggesting that people throw away the single advantage of Wikipedia over an internet search engine, which is the fact that it is a single cross-linked, searchable reference of vast size? What possible advantage do you hope to gain by telling people that they should go somewhere else to find their information? Are you hoping to make it irrelevant for the purposes that most people use it for? Wikipedia will _never_ be an authoritative source, since it is not written by authorities in the various subjects it presents.
Could you also stop pretending that your view of what Wikipedia should be matches the view of the majority of people who use it? It should come as no surprise that the majority of the public nearly always votes to keep the articles that a minority of self-important, self-perpetuating admins decide to delete. But, of course, since the admins are only interested in expanding their own little power circles, they just arbitrarily decide to ignore the viewpoints of people they disagree with (Typically by labeling all dissenting opinions as those of “meatpuppets”) and the articles get deleted anyways.
The problem with the idea that Wikipedia presents knowledge and not information is that the two are inseparable; any distinction made between the two is purely arbitrary.
Oh, I’ll also be happy to accept your implicit concession that you can’t prove your assertion that a network becomes less useful as more people use it.
February 10th, 2007 at 7:33 am
The point is not for Wikipedia to be authoritative. (The Encyclopaedia Britannica is not very authoritative, either.) It should be merely reliable. Thank you for setting up straw people for my other points as well. The deletion discussions are just that; they are never votes and the number of people who join does not matter. Decisions are made on the basis of arguments, and the people who join the debate by reading about it somewhere and who do not read Wikipedia’s policies beforehand rarely contribute anything but noise. That’s why such contributors aren’t so popular.
My view of what Wikipedia should be is based on reading the project’s own policy pages. Where does your view come from?
(Also, I’ll be happy to ignore your acceptance of a concession I never made and other like things.)
February 10th, 2007 at 7:29 pm
When the decision is not made by majority vote, who is it made by?
An arbitrarily selected administrator.
When Wikipedia admins arbitrarily delete articles that merit inclusion, it becomes unreliable.
February 10th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I really like that you are moving your goalposts around (if not outright lying). Do I really need to quote where you state that you want Wikipedia to replace real encyclopedias? Now you claim that you don’t want it to be authoritative.
I’m not setting up strawmen of your arguments. I’m demanding that you stop trying to weasel your way out of the statements you’ve previously made. Thanks for admitting, however, that the admins delete articles based on purely arbitrary criteria that they decide upon on the spur of the moment, where the discussion about article deletion is only a nicety to placate the people who want the article to remain (ie. the majority). I thought that you were previously trying to argue that Wikipedia worked via the consensus of the majority of the users. I’m glad that you’ve cleared it up that you didn’t actually believe what you wrote.