Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 3:17 PM, stevertigo wrote: > The entire NEWT project is a "disruption to make a point" - and the No. The main goal is/was data collection - to find out whether the assertions made by the original blog post were accurate or not. It seems that there are grounds for considerable improvement, but we're not at crisis point. Steve ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning
stevertigo wrote: > Carcharoth wrote: >> nagios? >> ganglia? >> 4-CPU apache? >> scap? >> swap? >> memcached node? >> >> Is it fixed now? Oh, good. :-) > > Off the top of my head... > > "Nagios" is ostensibly the report server and caching manager and > "ganglia" IIRC is a page caching manager. Actually neither of them are "caching managers" or have any direct role in caching. This isn't the forum to go into a detailed discussion of what they do mean, and a google search would do just as well to fill Carcharoth in, if he was actually interested, which he obviously isn't. > "Caching" basically just > means keeping wiki pages in RAM so that things get fetched quickly - > most people are not logged in so they get the same HTML and reuse the > same CSS. This is not particularly accurate either. > The main concept was that the error not only caused caching servers > that were supposed to keep pages in RAM had to dump these pages into > swap memory, but it affected a main caching node through which other > nodes... do stuff... apparently. "Memcached" is the name of the > caching software, or rather one of them, and the first one implemented > here. IIRC it was first developed for /. (?), I think you mean LiveJournal. > and kind of kept WP > barely alive through the great traffic growth spurts of 04 and 05. > > I looked up "scap" and still dunno what it is. http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Scap Liam Wyatt wrote: > Just like there's a certain amount of (anti)prestige associated with being > one of the admins who've managed to delete the mainpage > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Main_Page is > there also a barnstar for being a techie who has unintentionally taken the > whole site down? :-) We don't make a big deal of it. Unlike deleting the main page, crashing the site is an easy mistake to make. -- Tim Starling ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 9:50 PM, stevertigo wrote: > Ryan Delaney wrote: > > > You might be misunderstanding what the objection is here. Nobody needs to > be > > reminded that use of sysop tools is subject to peer review. > > True (though I don't think David is misunderstanding anything). The > issue is not reviewing how sysops use their tools. It is about > correcting the misconceptions upon which sysops base a substantially > destructive usage of those tools. > > I think that's a noble goal, and the idea behind this project seems like a good one. Incidentally, I'm probably in the running for most rabid inclusionist here. I think we all ought to be able to understand, though, that it goes too far when the experiment itself becomes a source of disruption. I don't know all the details, but I'm guessing that's why WSC asked to put it on hold. -- causa sui ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Featured churn
On 14/07/2009, Sage Ross wrote: > On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Ian Woollard > wrote: > >> >> It's looking to me like 3.5 million is about the plateau, since the >> curve is bang on that, but we might make 4 million *eventually*. >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Modelling_Wikipedia%27s_growth#Logistic_model_for_growth_in_article_count_of_Wikipedia >> > > I don't think the bell-shaped articles/day curve of the logistic model > is a good description of the trends. Since article creation peaked in > 2007, the falloff in article creation has been much slower than than > ramp-up. Rather than falling back to close to zero articles/day over > the next 5 years or so (as the logistic model predicts), it looks like > we're heading to an asymptote of (I'm eyeballing it here) around 1000 > articles/day. I expect 4 million articles a lot sooner than > *eventually*. ;) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Enwikipediagrowth.PNG We're already down to 1000/day growth on the unsmoothed graph as we fall off one of the two biannual growth peaks. Looks like the Wikipedia is still bang-on for 3.5 million articles. > -Sage -- -Ian Woollard ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
Ryan Delaney wrote: > You might be misunderstanding what the objection is here. Nobody needs to be > reminded that use of sysop tools is subject to peer review. True (though I don't think David is misunderstanding anything). The issue is not reviewing how sysops use their tools. It is about correcting the misconceptions upon which sysops base a substantially destructive usage of those tools. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 9:00 PM, David Goodman wrote: > so far from being disruptive, the project is an attempt to > demonstrate the ongoing disruption being routinely carried out by > people deleting improvable articles. sometimes a few test cases are > the clearest way to show that, and the project seems to have made done > that very successfully. We now need to consider how to improve what we > do so the discouragement of new authors decreases. > > I remind everyone that what admins do is open and can and should be > audited. Though that was not the purpose of the project, it is > perfectly in order to check the deletions of individual admins. We > should expect at least the same knowledge of basic rules we look for > at an RfA. > > David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG > > > You might be misunderstanding what the objection is here. Nobody needs to be reminded that use of sysop tools is subject to peer review. -- causa sui ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
so far from being disruptive, the project is an attempt to demonstrate the ongoing disruption being routinely carried out by people deleting improvable articles. sometimes a few test cases are the clearest way to show that, and the project seems to have made done that very successfully. We now need to consider how to improve what we do so the discouragement of new authors decreases. I remind everyone that what admins do is open and can and should be audited. Though that was not the purpose of the project, it is perfectly in order to check the deletions of individual admins. We should expect at least the same knowledge of basic rules we look for at an RfA. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 11:17 PM, stevertigo wrote: > Ryan Delaney wrote: > >> Actually, it's the other way around. Deliberately writing a bad article that >> should be deleted, but doesn't technically fit the CSD due to some loophole, >> sounds like the definition of disruption to make a point. I'd have to see a >> test case to say that for sure. > > The entire NEWT project is a "disruption to make a point" - and the > point is well made: A good number of deletionists could do something > better with their time. > > -Stevertigo > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning
Carcharoth wrote: > nagios? > ganglia? > 4-CPU apache? > scap? > swap? > memcached node? > > Is it fixed now? Oh, good. :-) Off the top of my head... "Nagios" is ostensibly the report server and caching manager and "ganglia" IIRC is a page caching manager. "Caching" basically just means keeping wiki pages in RAM so that things get fetched quickly - most people are not logged in so they get the same HTML and reuse the same CSS. The main concept was that the error not only caused caching servers that were supposed to keep pages in RAM had to dump these pages into swap memory, but it affected a main caching node through which other nodes... do stuff... apparently. "Memcached" is the name of the caching software, or rather one of them, and the first one implemented here. IIRC it was first developed for /. (?), and kind of kept WP barely alive through the great traffic growth spurts of 04 and 05. I looked up "scap" and still dunno what it is. Again, that's just off the cuff. Don't take anything seriously. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
Ryan Delaney wrote: > Actually, it's the other way around. Deliberately writing a bad article that > should be deleted, but doesn't technically fit the CSD due to some loophole, > sounds like the definition of disruption to make a point. I'd have to see a > test case to say that for sure. The entire NEWT project is a "disruption to make a point" - and the point is well made: A good number of deletionists could do something better with their time. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 5:56 PM, Ken Arromdee wrote: > But CSD *isn't for deleting everything that should be deleted*. So the > fact that the article doesn't fit CSD but should be deleted anyway isn't > a loophole. Plenty of things which should be deleted don't fit CSD. Absolutely. The intention of CSD is to reduce the overhead related costs of the full deletion process for classes of deletions which are broadly uncontroversial. "Your speedy deletion of X was bogus because the matter of articles of X-type being deleted is not at all clearly clear, and I think the article should be kept" is a clearly reasonable objection. "Your speedy deletion violated paragraph 3 sub-paragraph 2 section A of speedy code 27b/6.", without any tying back to the intent of the rules and the goodness of the outcome is another matter entirely… If we're really to the point where we have to make boundary-testing articles to probe the process as clearly good newbie articles are being kept, then the problem can't be that bad. ... On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Carcharoth wrote: > If the title is valid, it is easier to turn it into a redirect and > merge any content not already mentioned in the existing article (a > s-merge as it is sometimes called). The failure to consider moving In this case it was one sentence of the "X is a Y" form, and we already had an article on X by another name. Calling anything coming out of that a 'merge' would be a polite lie at best. It's one I've made before… but we should still call it for what it is. Many of the redirects I've created in the past were later deleted. I don't know that anyone has any clue what the criteria is for keeping redirects or not, so I can't say that one should have been created here. Since no one seems to have joined clubs based on redirect preferences there doesn't really seem to be many loud arguments about the right criteria. The conversion of an article to a redirect is equivalent to straight deletion, the most significant exception is the deletion may have missed an opportunity to create a useful redirect. (In my view, the fact that the old text is available in a highly obscure location rather than a very highly obscure location isn't very important). It's harmful to miss the redirect, but if your goal is to improve redirects there are MANY more low hanging fruit that could be addressed before worrying about deletions which should have been redirect conversions. On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 3:05 PM, George Herbert wrote: > I disagree that this rose to the level of a breaching experiment. > However - it was intended as an experiment, not a way to pick on > individual new page patrollers. And ended up being perceived as the > latter, rightly or wrongly. And that wasn't a good thing. > The lessons and changes to flow out of this (I hope...) need to be > structural and community, not individual and personal and > inquisitorial. My apologies: It was my intent to say that this was walking that line, not that it was over it. On re-read I see that I didn't at all come off that way. I'm sure all involved intended to do well. I think they'd do best by avoiding process pedantry and sticking to clear-cut cases which were handled clearly wrong with a harmful outcome. There will be fewer examples of this, but the examples found will be far more compelling. This kind of experiment is only part data collecting... it also has the purpose of convincing a wider circle of people that there is a problem which needs to be addressed. Only people who are already convinced are going to be moved by borderline cases. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 3:14 PM, David Gerard wrote: > 2009/11/16 Ryan Delaney : > >> No argument there. What's important about this case is that (as it has been >> explained to me, anyway) someone was deliberately writing a bad article with >> the express intention of being a pain in the ass. That's gaming the system >> in a disruptive way to make some kind of political point, and we generally >> frown on that for obvious reasons. > > > Yes, that's just being silly. A test is to write an article as if > you're not a known experienced editor, but still try to do a > reasonable job on it. I partially disagree. Writing a "bad article" - unreferenced, poor grammar, etc - on a subject which is not yet covered and yet which clearly meets our notability and topic requirements and whose notability and validity can be easily established with web searches - is an excellent experiment. Part of the challenge here is not just "What if a nobody comes along and creates an ok article". Part of the challenge is whether we handle new clueless nobodies well, when they have a good article idea but no idea how Wikipedia does things, yet. That's what doing a bad-ish article tests. Writing an intentionally bad article in the "there's no reason to have an article on this" isn't particularly good - we can find enough of those in new page patrol logs and CSD deletion logs - spam, opinion pieces, vandalism, random graffiti, BLPs of schoolchildren, etc. without doing experiments, I think, unless we think we need some control cases done by the same testers. Keep in mind that this was a very ad-hoc experiment, and by normal protocols horribly run. That said, it's also horribly important, and has (despite the flaws) given some extremely important data. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
2009/11/16 Ryan Delaney : > No argument there. What's important about this case is that (as it has been > explained to me, anyway) someone was deliberately writing a bad article with > the express intention of being a pain in the ass. That's gaming the system > in a disruptive way to make some kind of political point, and we generally > frown on that for obvious reasons. Yes, that's just being silly. A test is to write an article as if you're not a known experienced editor, but still try to do a reasonable job on it. - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 2:56 PM, Ken Arromdee wrote: > On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Ryan Delaney wrote: > > Actually, it's the other way around. Deliberately writing a bad article > that > > should be deleted, but doesn't technically fit the CSD due to some > loophole, > > sounds like the definition of disruption to make a point. I'd have to see > a > > test case to say that for sure. > > But CSD *isn't for deleting everything that should be deleted*. So the > fact that the article doesn't fit CSD but should be deleted anyway isn't > a loophole. Plenty of things which should be deleted don't fit CSD. > > No argument there. What's important about this case is that (as it has been explained to me, anyway) someone was deliberately writing a bad article with the express intention of being a pain in the ass. That's gaming the system in a disruptive way to make some kind of political point, and we generally frown on that for obvious reasons. - causa sui ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Ryan Delaney wrote: > Actually, it's the other way around. Deliberately writing a bad article that > should be deleted, but doesn't technically fit the CSD due to some loophole, > sounds like the definition of disruption to make a point. I'd have to see a > test case to say that for sure. But CSD *isn't for deleting everything that should be deleted*. So the fact that the article doesn't fit CSD but should be deleted anyway isn't a loophole. Plenty of things which should be deleted don't fit CSD. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning
Hehe. Yeah, I'm with Carcharoth. Not sure what any of that meant Andrew, but it sounds important. Glad it's back up. Thanks for keeping us informed. Just like there's a certain amount of (anti)prestige associated with being one of the admins who've managed to delete the mainpage http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Main_Page is there also a barnstar for being a techie who has unintentionally taken the whole site down? :-) As Brion says "The internet is burning!" -Liam [[witty lama]] wittylama.com/blog Peace, love & metadata On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 2:28 AM, Carcharoth wrote: > nagios? > ganglia? > 4-CPU apache? > scap? > swap? > memcached node? > > > > Is it fixed now? Oh, good. :-) > > Carcharoth > > On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 3:04 PM, David Gerard wrote: > > -- Forwarded message -- > > From: Andrew Garrett > > Date: 2009/11/16 > > Subject: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning > > To: Wikimedia developers > > > > > > Hi all, > > > > There has been some downtime this morning (about 15 minutes) due to a > > software update. > > > > I pushed a software update, and immediately servers started crashing > > according to nagios. Looking at ganglia, it looks like the issue was > > the familiar issue where scap pushes a few 4-CPU apaches into swap, > > which then crash and come back a few minutes later. This time, > > however, obviously a key memcached node fell over, causing a database > > overload, resulting in the site being mostly inaccessible for about > > ten minutes. > > > > I prepared to revert the software update, but determined that the > > problem was not the software update, and a scap would exacerbate the > > issue. The problem resolved itself spontaneously. > > > > We need to fix things up so the scap script is less liable to push > > machines into swap :) > > > > -- > > Andrew Garrett > > agarr...@wikimedia.org > > http://werdn.us/ > > > > > > ___ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > > ___ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
Carcharoth wrote: > Take a random sample of > deleted articles and see what proportion actually didn't fix the > criteria and what proportion can be written as acceptable articles. > Have a look at [[Charles Mills Gayley]], which I created as a stub, was deleted as an A7, and which I eventually returned to this year, restoring it and expanding, and which an anon has this time run with. That's how Wikipedia is supposed to work. We lost over three years of potential article growth there. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 8:35 AM, Ken Arromdee wrote: > On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > > It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are > > intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering > > over the specific speedy deletion category names: > > I'd argue that tagging something for speedy deletion when it doesn't > actually > fit the criteria is itself a form of rules lawyering. > > Actually, it's the other way around. Deliberately writing a bad article that should be deleted, but doesn't technically fit the CSD due to some loophole, sounds like the definition of disruption to make a point. I'd have to see a test case to say that for sure. - causa sui - causa sui ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 8:06 AM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 10:34 AM, stevertigo wrote: >> Sounds like just more strategic deletionist excusism. There is no >> excuse for anyone giving to destruction a higher value than they do to >> creation. >> >> So now that things are wrapping up, don't forget to hand out some >> merit badges to the 'winners.' Ostensibly, there is a deletionist who >> stands out from the pack, for whom a specially branded Trout Award >> will do just fine. > > WereSpielChequers could have expressed his concerns a bit better here. > > It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are > intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering > over the specific speedy deletion category names: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ASeb_az86556&action=historysubmit&diff=325921044&oldid=325918976 > > There can be a fine line between probing the boundary of new user treatment > and a breaching experiment. I disagree that this rose to the level of a breaching experiment. However - it was intended as an experiment, not a way to pick on individual new page patrollers. And ended up being perceived as the latter, rightly or wrongly. And that wasn't a good thing. The lessons and changes to flow out of this (I hope...) need to be structural and community, not individual and personal and inquisitorial. -- -george william herbert george.herb...@gmail.com ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER
stevertigo wrote: >> And I've said a hundred times that there's nothing wrong with cubic >> zirconia. Soxred93 wrote: > Just don't let your girlfriend/wife hear you. That's not a problem. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER
> > And I've said a hundred times that there's nothing wrong with cubic > zirconia. > Just don't let your girlfriend/wife hear you. -X! ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 5:13 PM, stevertigo wrote:
>> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 4:50 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>>> or do you claim that we shouldn't
>>> delete sub-stubs duplicating pre-existing articles?
> Carcharoth wrote:
>> If the title is valid, it is easier to turn it into a redirect and
>> merge any content not already mentioned in the existing article (a
>> s-merge as it is sometimes called). The failure to consider moving
>> content elsewhere (and leaving a redirect to preserve the
>> contributions history) is a common misunderstanding made by those who
>> request deletion in such cases.
>
> +!
>
> Well, that's the point. If our sanitation engineers actually did what
> real sanitation engineers do and actually salvaged things (nice coffee
> table!), nobody would have a problem with deletion as a process.
>
> And as for the philosophical aspects, we don't generally let nihilists
> have too much control for the simple reason that they tend to turn
> destruction into an -ism.
To be fair. When actually trying to do this at NPP, practice is harder
than theory. I have every sympathy and respect for those doing NPP, as
they will make mistakes. I would err on the side of caution and leave
such articles to be dealt with later, but then PROD and AfD also get
applied without much cleanup effort applied, so that doesn't seem to
help either. Often, the only real solution is to apply {{sofixit}}.
Which, ironically, is sort of what I think this whole project
(WP:NEWT) was doing. Making an attempt to gather data to get a fix to
a perceived problem. There have been some good suggestions for other
ways to gather the data. Me, I'd personally be interested in looking
at articles that got deleted at seeing whether any can be rewritten
and (in some cases) the history undeleted. Take a random sample of
deleted articles and see what proportion actually didn't fix the
criteria and what proportion can be written as acceptable articles.
Carcharoth
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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 4:50 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: >> or do you claim that we shouldn't >> delete sub-stubs duplicating pre-existing articles? Carcharoth wrote: > If the title is valid, it is easier to turn it into a redirect and > merge any content not already mentioned in the existing article (a > s-merge as it is sometimes called). The failure to consider moving > content elsewhere (and leaving a redirect to preserve the > contributions history) is a common misunderstanding made by those who > request deletion in such cases. +! Well, that's the point. If our sanitation engineers actually did what real sanitation engineers do and actually salvaged things (nice coffee table!), nobody would have a problem with deletion as a process. And as for the philosophical aspects, we don't generally let nihilists have too much control for the simple reason that they tend to turn destruction into an -ism. -Stevertigo "Is that some sort of Eastern thing? ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > Rules lawyering is generally taken to mean an excessively strict and > pedantic reading of rules often leaning on obscure clauses and > interpretations to push a preferred outcome contrary to intuitive > sense and the probable intent of the rule. I'd say that the probable intent of the rule was to allow a small number of very unambiguous, very specific, and very obvious cases, which have been extensively discussed in advance, to be deleted. Speedy deletion is *not* meant to delete everything that's delete-worthy. Adding another case that hasn't been discussed in advance is an attempt to push it towards deleting anything delete-worthy, which is not what it's for. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 4:50 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > or do you claim that we shouldn't > delete sub-stubs duplicating pre-existing articles? If the title is valid, it is easier to turn it into a redirect and merge any content not already mentioned in the existing article (a s-merge as it is sometimes called). The failure to consider moving content elsewhere (and leaving a redirect to preserve the contributions history) is a common misunderstanding made by those who request deletion in such cases. Whenever I look at an article proposed for deletion, I ask myself, "is this verifiable and encyclopedic and would someone potentially be searching for information on this topic?", then I ask myself if it is "notable"? If it is not notable but still verifiable and encyclopedic, the answer is usually to merge the information (in some limited sense) to a broader article. Deletion is a blunt tool sometimes used when editorial consideration and actual editing can get better results instead. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
Ken Arromdee wrote: > On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Gregory Maxwell wrote: >> It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are >> intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering >> over the specific speedy deletion category names: > > I'd argue that tagging something for speedy deletion when it doesn't actually > fit the criteria is itself a form of rules lawyering. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> WereSpielChequers could have expressed his concerns a bit better here.
> It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are
> intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering
> over the specific speedy deletion category names:
> There can be a fine line between probing the boundary of new user treatment
> and a breaching experiment.
I don't really understand the "[x]-lawyering," in that diff (in Greg's
post). (Note that "[x]-lawyering" is largely just a stigmanym given
out like candy to anyone who's actually somewhat successful at arguing
against mob rule).
But, since you mention it, is "intentionally [creating] very low
quality articles" really a serious problem on Wikipedia in the first
place? Edits like these (
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Big_Lebowski&oldid=286557
) are what built Wikipedia, and yet the deletionista says these need
immediate deletion to "purify" and "protect" WP from "POV" and "OR."
(In that case at lease, capable people decided to employ Wikipedia's
article editing functionality, and {{sofixit}}ed it instead).
The issue is really that deletion is reserved for two things: 1)
Articles created with no purpose (ie. titles that do not correspond to
anything encyclopedically conceptual), and 2) articles created as
vandalism. My thinking is that lots of [[red links]] are in fact a
good thing for WP. Maybe making red links a different color (green?)
might counter our tendency to undo new links and thus foster article
creation? The issue there is teaching newbies how to find the existing
article and redirecting to it.
-Stevertigo
"Some people say a man is made outta mud..
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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Ken Arromdee wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are
>> intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering
>> over the specific speedy deletion category names:
>
> I'd argue that tagging something for speedy deletion when it doesn't actually
> fit the criteria is itself a form of rules lawyering.
Rules lawyering is generally taken to mean an excessively strict and
pedantic reading of rules often leaning on obscure clauses and
interpretations to push a preferred outcome contrary to intuitive
sense and the probable intent of the rule.
It didn't fit the explicitly stated criteria. A good example of rules
lawyering would be finding some obscure rule for image copyright that
failed to make it clear that it didn't apply to text, then operating
within the strict letter of that rule to delete the article. ("See
right here: 'All material submitted to Wikipedia must have a copyright
tag or it will be deleted'. It's even in bold!")
In this case the rule wasn't followed, but the tagging person was
clearly operating with the intent of and, in this case, the actual
result of improving the Wikipedia (or do you claim that we shouldn't
delete sub-stubs duplicating pre-existing articles?) — arguably
putting the rules violating deletion tagging under the auspices of
WP:IAR.
Only on English Wikipedia could someone describe an violation of the
letter of rules in favour of the spirit of the rules as
rules-lawyering.
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Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
Sort of like getting annoyed with a police officer for giving you a warning for speeding. No harm done to anyone, just don't speed next time. Pun intended. ~A On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 11:35, Ken Arromdee wrote: > On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Gregory Maxwell wrote: >> It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are >> intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering >> over the specific speedy deletion category names: > > I'd argue that tagging something for speedy deletion when it doesn't actually > fit the criteria is itself a form of rules lawyering. > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, 16 Nov 2009, Gregory Maxwell wrote: > It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are > intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering > over the specific speedy deletion category names: I'd argue that tagging something for speedy deletion when it doesn't actually fit the criteria is itself a form of rules lawyering. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] WIKIPEDIA FOREVER
Emily Monroe wrote: >> I don't understand how this [off topic discussion about big diamonds and >> physics] even relates to banner slogans, people! >> Emily Keegan Paul wrote: > It relates because using anything claiming it to be forever is stupid. > Short of theological concepts and some metaphysical debate on the origins > of the universe, the WIKIPEDIA FOREVER slogan is a cubic zirconia knock-off > of De Beers. Well that's a bit strongly-worded, even if its mostly accurate. Note that love actually *is forever, regardless of what the diamond cartels may say. And I've said a hundred times that there's nothing wrong with cubic zirconia. -Stevertigo "..and we all lose our charms in the end.." ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 10:34 AM, stevertigo wrote: > Sounds like just more strategic deletionist excusism. There is no > excuse for anyone giving to destruction a higher value than they do to > creation. > > So now that things are wrapping up, don't forget to hand out some > merit badges to the 'winners.' Ostensibly, there is a deletionist who > stands out from the pack, for whom a specially branded Trout Award > will do just fine. WereSpielChequers could have expressed his concerns a bit better here. It seems that, under the guise of this project, some people are intentionally writing very low quality articles and then rules-lawyering over the specific speedy deletion category names: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ASeb_az86556&action=historysubmit&diff=325921044&oldid=325918976 There can be a fine line between probing the boundary of new user treatment and a breaching experiment. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
WereSpielChequers wrote: > If anyone was contemplating participating in [[Wikipedia:Newbie > treatment at CSD]], please don't create any more new articles under > undisclosed new accounts, whilst we discuss concerns that some users > have raised that the damage to the new page patrol process may > outweigh the benefits. Sounds like just more strategic deletionist excusism. There is no excuse for anyone giving to destruction a higher value than they do to creation. So now that things are wrapping up, don't forget to hand out some merit badges to the 'winners.' Ostensibly, there is a deletionist who stands out from the pack, for whom a specially branded Trout Award will do just fine. -Stevertigo ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning
nagios? ganglia? 4-CPU apache? scap? swap? memcached node? Is it fixed now? Oh, good. :-) Carcharoth On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 3:04 PM, David Gerard wrote: > -- Forwarded message -- > From: Andrew Garrett > Date: 2009/11/16 > Subject: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning > To: Wikimedia developers > > > Hi all, > > There has been some downtime this morning (about 15 minutes) due to a > software update. > > I pushed a software update, and immediately servers started crashing > according to nagios. Looking at ganglia, it looks like the issue was > the familiar issue where scap pushes a few 4-CPU apaches into swap, > which then crash and come back a few minutes later. This time, > however, obviously a key memcached node fell over, causing a database > overload, resulting in the site being mostly inaccessible for about > ten minutes. > > I prepared to revert the software update, but determined that the > problem was not the software update, and a scap would exacerbate the > issue. The problem resolved itself spontaneously. > > We need to fix things up so the scap script is less liable to push > machines into swap :) > > -- > Andrew Garrett > agarr...@wikimedia.org > http://werdn.us/ > > > ___ > Wikitech-l mailing list > wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning
-- Forwarded message -- From: Andrew Garrett Date: 2009/11/16 Subject: [Wikitech-l] Downtime this morning To: Wikimedia developers Hi all, There has been some downtime this morning (about 15 minutes) due to a software update. I pushed a software update, and immediately servers started crashing according to nagios. Looking at ganglia, it looks like the issue was the familiar issue where scap pushes a few 4-CPU apaches into swap, which then crash and come back a few minutes later. This time, however, obviously a key memcached node fell over, causing a database overload, resulting in the site being mostly inaccessible for about ten minutes. I prepared to revert the software update, but determined that the problem was not the software update, and a scap would exacerbate the issue. The problem resolved itself spontaneously. We need to fix things up so the scap script is less liable to push machines into swap :) -- Andrew Garrett agarr...@wikimedia.org http://werdn.us/ ___ Wikitech-l mailing list wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Create an article as a newbie challenge now paused
If anyone was contemplating participating in [[Wikipedia:Newbie treatment at CSD]], please don't create any more new articles under undisclosed new accounts, whilst we discuss concerns that some users have raised that the damage to the new page patrol process may outweigh the benefits. WereSpielChequers > > Message: 6 > Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:38:53 +1100 > From: Steve Bennett > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Update on the >create an article as a newbie challenge > To: English Wikipedia > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 4:55 AM, George Herbert > wrote: >> I want to personally look at the articles and responses in more depth >> before I comment more, but this has been exceptionally valuable >> research. > > Yes, can you please post the usernames and the articles that were > created? If some were speedied, do you have the original text? > Obviously we shouldn't be having an "omg rampant speedyism" debate if > the articles were actually speedyable... > > Steve > > > > -- ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Google blurb generation + Wikipedia = POVpedia
2009/11/16 Gregory Maxwell : > For a while I thought it was just extracting text beginning at > "Searchterm is something" looking backwards from the end of the > article, but it seems to be more than that. Some older examples where > I've seen this now seem to be returning different results, I don't > know if its a timing thing or just chance. I think it's an unfortunate collision of your search terms and Wikipedia's preferred vocabulary. We've long standardised on "film" not "movie", so any incidence of the latter is likely to be in direct quotes, and is very *unlikely* to be in the lead section. Direct quotes tend to be reviews, pro or con, so when the algorithm tries to find extracts showing as many search terms as possible, it ends up apparently cherry-picking these. The effect becomes clearer when we compare the results using "film" instead of "movie". [the box film wikipedia] The Box (2009 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "The Box is a 2009 science fiction horror film based on the 1970 short story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson, which was previously adapted into an ..." [the box movie wikipedia] The Box (2009 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "And it's so rare that a movie is an F. I mean, if it's an F, it shouldn't even be released." On the topic of the negative reaction to The Box, Mintz blamed ..." Note that the first has all its keywords in the header, so it shows the first line (which contains three of them anyway). The second has all the keywords *except* 'movie', so it looks for an extract specifically using that word. (I don't know how it chooses that extract, though) We can test this by using a different keyword and seeing how it builds the extract: [the box mintz wikipedia] The Box (2009 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "On the topic of the negative reaction to The Box, Mintz blamed the film's ending and was quoted as saying "People really thought this was a stinker". ..." Might this explain the effect? No idea how to *solve* it, though... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] Erik on the fundraiser
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2009/Alternative_banners#An_update_on_the_fundraiser - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
