Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

Ehm, that looks great, but I have no idea what a project is and how to
I join? The talk page on the Edit_Review_Improvements has just some
suggestions? How is communication being done here? Sorry if this is
obvious.


Mitar

On Mon, Jun 27, 2016 at 9:51 AM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
> Saw this on the latest issue of Tech News (
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2016/26). Thought it might be
> interest as it's directly related to this thread.
>
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_Review_Improvements
>
> see also: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/edit-review-improvements/
>
> @Mitar -- you might want to volunteer to participate in this process, as
> you have a lot of suggestions. I think the first way into the project is
> via the Talk page, though :-)
>
> - Erika
>
>
> *Erika Herzog*
> Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

Saw this on the latest issue of Tech News (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/News/2016/26). Thought it might be
interest as it's directly related to this thread.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Edit_Review_Improvements

see also: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/edit-review-improvements/

@Mitar -- you might want to volunteer to participate in this process, as
you have a lot of suggestions. I think the first way into the project is
via the Talk page, though :-)

- Erika


*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Kevin Smith]

I'm an infrequent editor. Naively, I don't understand:

1. Why the author's attempt at a discussion/clarification was ignored
2. Given point #1, why this was deleted *so* quickly, when it was merely
"insignificant", and not actively harmful (e.g. copyright violation)
3. Given point #1, why the article was deleted, instead of being moved into
some draft space

If any of those three had been handled differently, at a minimum, this
potential new editor would have felt more welcomed. In most cases, this
article would have disappeared. It was only because Mitar spoke up that the
article was resurrected and turned into what is, which is apparently an
article of positive value for wikipedia.

It's not clear to me how much of what happened was in line with existing
policies. Perhaps some of what happened leaned toward the harsh end of
normal. It's not clear to me how easy it would be to shift the policies, or
implementations, slightly in the direction of being more welcoming.

I think the process "worked" as far as keeping a dodgy article out, and
making efficient use of admin time. I don't think the process "worked" as
far as growing the editor community, nor in terms of helping appropriate
content get added.

Maybe things are as they need to be, for admin efficiency. But I think it's
worth considering whether that is the case. Could we do something to
improve the situation?

Thinking outside the box, perhaps by default new articles should be created
in a private sandbox, so inexperienced editors won't run into this trap. A
user setting could allow experienced editors to create articles directly in
the main namespace, I suppose that has been discussed before, and there's
probably a good reason why it won't work. Still, it seems like we should be
able to find processes that are win-win-win, for new editors, admins, and
readers.

NOTE: I am not speaking as a foundation employee here. This is strictly
personal opinion.


Kevin Smith



On Mon, Jun 27, 2016 at 8:39 AM, Pax Ahimsa Gethen <
list-wikime...@funcrunch.org> wrote:

> Without weighing in on the specific's of Mitar's case, I think this is a
> good suggestion. I created my first Wikipedia article in 2009, after I'd
> been registered on the site for a few months but only had a few edits to my
> name. My article was on a living musician/composer, and was, rightfully I
> think, tagged for notability. It wasn't deleted though (I did improve it
> with more sources), and that article is still up today.
>
> Regardless, it would have been good for me to get more experience by
> improving other articles before creating one myself. Even now, seven years
> later, I don't create many new articles, preferring to work on existing
> ones. Whenever I do create a new article, I always work up a solid version,
> with good sources, in my userspace first.
>
> - Pax, aka Funcrunch
>
>
>
> On 6/27/16 12:40 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
>
>> Or may be just to emphasize again David's point. Every new editor
>> starting an article about a living person or an existing organization with
>> a not-so-obvious notability is always suspected of promotional (payed of
>> fan-like) editing. Always. And promotional editing is always a red tape.
>>
>> As a new editor, do not start with articles which can be thought of as
>> promotional. Write about history, localities, natural history, improve
>> existing articles. Establish your name on the project. Become an
>> autopatrolled. Then it is much safer to go to the areas attractive for
>> promotional editors.
>>
>> This is not how it should be, but how it is. This is so far our only
>> response to promotional editing.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Yaroslav
>>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Pax Ahimsa Gethen]

Without weighing in on the specific's of Mitar's case, I think this is a 
good suggestion. I created my first Wikipedia article in 2009, after I'd 
been registered on the site for a few months but only had a few edits to 
my name. My article was on a living musician/composer, and was, 
rightfully I think, tagged for notability. It wasn't deleted though (I 
did improve it with more sources), and that article is still up today.


Regardless, it would have been good for me to get more experience by 
improving other articles before creating one myself. Even now, seven 
years later, I don't create many new articles, preferring to work on 
existing ones. Whenever I do create a new article, I always work up a 
solid version, with good sources, in my userspace first.


- Pax, aka Funcrunch


On 6/27/16 12:40 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
Or may be just to emphasize again David's point. Every new editor 
starting an article about a living person or an existing organization 
with a not-so-obvious notability is always suspected of promotional 
(payed of fan-like) editing. Always. And promotional editing is always 
a red tape.


As a new editor, do not start with articles which can be thought of as 
promotional. Write about history, localities, natural history, improve 
existing articles. Establish your name on the project. Become an 
autopatrolled. Then it is much safer to go to the areas attractive for 
promotional editors.


This is not how it should be, but how it is. This is so far our only 
response to promotional editing.


Cheers
Yaroslav



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

Brill Lyle писал 2016-06-27 04:24:
That said, it's down to the quality of the first draft. In this 
instance,
the draft, in my opinion, did a disservice to the subject. Although 
there
were good citations, the content of the page was not strong enough or 
well

developed enough to reflect what the entity actually does. And didn't
establish notability or have the basic details needed to be up on
Wikipedia. It was a draft and belonged in a Draft, Sandbox, or user 
space.





Or may be just to emphasize again David's point. Every new editor 
starting an article about a living person or an existing organization 
with a not-so-obvious notability is always suspected of promotional 
(payed of fan-like) editing. Always. And promotional editing is always a 
red tape.


As a new editor, do not start with articles which can be thought of as 
promotional. Write about history, localities, natural history, improve 
existing articles. Establish your name on the project. Become an 
autopatrolled. Then it is much safer to go to the areas attractive for 
promotional editors.


This is not how it should be, but how it is. This is so far our only 
response to promotional editing.


Cheers
Yaroslav

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

I know David in real life so maybe I am not as objective as I could be but
I know how hard he works and how diligent he is about this admin work he
does. He is doing the devil's work in my opinion. I couldn't do what he
does so I'm thankful for his efforts. Thank you David.

When David has flagged things I've worked on -- or that I disagree on his
take on something others have worked on and he's flagged -- he's been very
willing to have a conversation about it -- and has changed his stance more
than once.

That said, it's down to the quality of the first draft. In this instance,
the draft, in my opinion, did a disservice to the subject. Although there
were good citations, the content of the page was not strong enough or well
developed enough to reflect what the entity actually does. And didn't
establish notability or have the basic details needed to be up on
Wikipedia. It was a draft and belonged in a Draft, Sandbox, or user space.

So this is another case of an enthusiastic editor putting something up on
the main space without doing the building blocks work that was needed. I
love the enthusiasm displayed here but helping new folks who want to create
entries for their friends and relatives or want to start right off with a
new entry -- vs. working on building skills by adding citations and
improving the gajillions of articles that need TLC -- well it begins to
wear even this inclusionist down. I don't think I had the guts or
confidence to start a new stub until I had been editing regularly for 6
months, but obviously other people have a different take on this.

Also:
Mitar, these long breathy quite frankly TL;DR posts don't really help your
cause. I think your concerns have been expressed and people have been great
about responding. But at a certain point no one has time to dig through all
your words and it becomes a bit presumptive that people have time to give
these legitimate concerns the attention they deserve. Just thought I'd
mention that. Totally ironic of me to say because I am a long-winded person
myself. So take that for what you will :-)

Again, only my opinion, all of the above. But wanted to give a shout out to
David and thank him publicly.

- Erika




*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *

On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 7:01 PM, David Goodman  wrote:

> I was the person who tagged the article we are discussing for deletion as
> no indication of importance. I am quite aware I have a certain frequency of
> error, probably about 2-5%, as does essentially everyone screening
> articles. Therefore there is an firmly established practice , that no
> administrator delete an article of such ground without a check from someone
> else, so it could not be deleted unless another administrator agreed. This
> reduces the error rate to about  0.05 to 0.25%,and I cannot imagine how and
> crowd-sourced process could do better.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 4:01 PM, David Goodman  wrote:
> I was the person who tagged the article we are discussing for deletion as
> no indication of importance.

Thank you for commenting here and for you work! I know it is a lot of
work and that errors are possible. This is completely expected. I
really appreciate all the admins and the work they are putting in.

> This reduces the error rate to about  0.05 to 0.25%,and I cannot imagine how 
> and
> crowd-sourced process could do better.

This sounds amazingly low! Great job!

> The procedure worked in this case; I seem to have made one of my errors,
> and another editor caught it; the article was not deleted, but was sent to
> one of our two areas for further work on articles, the editor's user
> subpage

No, the article was deleted. And was restored later on to my user
space after I got frustrated at first and then decided to retry the
whole process and dive deeper into editing Wikipedia practices. I must
say that this diving was interesting, that I learned many new things,
and were welcomed by many very friendly and helpful people.

> All too many articles go to user subpages or
> draft space and never get heard of again; more important, many potentially
> good editors whose material is challenged do not have enough confidence to
> complain  or enough knowledge to complain effectively.

This would be for me a much better experience. If somebody would move
it to a draft space and say, "hey, please improve it first, before
putting it to the main namespace" I would completely understand the
process. I did not know of this practice that people create articles
first in draft spaces and then move them to main once they are deemed
ready. I thought that I should just create an article which is missing
and make it a stub so that it is clear that it is still in process.

But it got deleted in a day, without any discussion on its talk page,
and I got lost access to its content. This made me confused as an
editor who is not very familiar with processes.

In general I think this should be the practice. If something is not
clearly illegal or something, then it should be moved to a draft
space. And if not improved in a month or so, deleted. (The latter
could probably be done automatically.)

Why is this not a common practice? I think it is a good compromise
between deletion and experience of editors.

So where there are clear steps what steps should be taken to improve
the thing I think this is great. For example, when the speedy deletion
tag was added to my article, there was a clear next step: on the talk
page start a discussion why it should not be deleted. I did that. But
instead of expected discussion, article was just deleted. This
confused me because I was not assuming I am doing anything wrong. I am
going step by step as instructed.

If instead it would be moved to draft space and said, "the article is
not yet to the standard of Wikipedia, it lacks clear statement of
notability, you have a month to improve it afterwards it will be
deleted" I would have known what to do, even without reading rules.
And it would be also a very reasonable thing for me to observe.

I think the main issue with deletion is that it is a cut-off point,
something where the flow of working on an article is abruptly cut and
one cannot continue without asking for help. This requires a really
high activation potential.

> Articles on small organization, commercial and
> non-commercial, and on the people associated with them, are the ones most
> prone to advertising. I once also thought about dividing the site as a
> potential solution,  but if we divided the site, the advertisersknow
> very well the significance of having an article on WP, and   would still
> want to be in the part where the most important articles go.

Exactly, but this is a good thing, no? So the editors who are not
advertisers would be OK with articles being in the draft space until
they are made to the good quality, and advertisers would not like
that.

So why is this argument against moving articled to the draft space
instead of just deleting them?

> The only really effective way to rid us of promotionalism  is to ban
> anonymous editing, and immediately reject any edits from people associated
> with the organization  or found to be paid editors.

Hm, but I must say that this is slightly contradictory to the issue of
notability and significance. Because one way to address the issue of
promotionalism is to allow articles about corporations to exist, but
be very bare and simple: there is this organization with this name, at
this location, with this founders, it produces milk. The end. Not much
space for PR. What is wrong with such an article? Maybe it is
important only to that local community who would search for all
companies producing milk in their area. Or students who would like to
create a map of all companies producing milk in their area. Or maybe a
professor wants to determine which 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[David Goodman]

I was the person who tagged the article we are discussing for deletion as
no indication of importance. I am quite aware I have a certain frequency of
error, probably about 2-5%, as does essentially everyone screening
articles. Therefore there is an firmly established practice , that no
administrator delete an article of such ground without a check from someone
else, so it could not be deleted unless another administrator agreed. This
reduces the error rate to about  0.05 to 0.25%,and I cannot imagine how and
crowd-sourced process could do better.

The procedure worked in this case; I seem to have made one of my errors,
and another editor caught it; the article was not deleted, but was sent to
one of our two areas for further work on articles, the editor's user
subpage (the other one is the Draft space, which is also used in such
cases. They each have advantages, though they overlap.) I am not saying we
have a perfect system here. All too many articles go to user subpages or
draft space and never get heard of again; more important, many potentially
good editors whose material is challenged do not have enough confidence to
complain  or enough knowledge to complain effectively.

We have made improvements, and if people suggest further ones, we can make
them. When I joined 9 years ago, the error rate was 5-10%, many
administrators deleted without waiting for confirmation, and our overall
process error rate was probably at least 2%. We can still do better than
the present situation, where the result essentially depends whether the
article attracts the attention of one of the relatively small number of
really good editors  such as Brill Lyle.  There are various small and large
improvements suggested, some of which may be feasible.  but the key problem
is not balancing the number of non-notable article accepted versus the
notable ones rejected, but dealing with promotionalism.

Small variations to the notability standard either way do not fundamentally
harm the encycopedia, but accepting articles that are part of a promotional
campaign causes great damage. Once we become a vehicle for promotion, we're
useless as an encyclopedia . Articles on small organization, commercial and
non-commercial, and on the people associated with them, are the ones most
prone to advertising.I once also thought about dividing the site as a
potential solution,  but if we divided the site, the advertisersknow
very well the significance of having an article on WP, and   would still
want to be in the part where the most important articles go.

The only really effective way to rid us of promotionalism  is to ban
anonymous editing, and immediately reject any edits from people associated
with the organization  or found to be paid editors. (we'd still have
problems with promotional editing fro fans and such, but this is presently
a lesser problem). However, this would be removing what almost everyone
here considers to be an essential core principle of WP, , and is not going
to happen.

I was once an inclusionist, and I remain so,a bout any topic not lending
itself to promotion ,or where the promotion can be removed.

On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 5:50 PM, John  wrote:

> Like you where told, Having an article not assert notably, and having an
> article be non-notable are effectively the same thing for wikipedia.
>
> You provided several examples specifically cities and plant/animal species,
> both of those have inherent notability. However companies do not have such
> a default status, thus must assert it. forcing the limited ~500
> administrators to review and research each of the 5693 deletions performed
> yesterday (of which 1196 where in the main namespace) would place too much
> burden on them if the article fails to assert notability or isnt notable
> there is no effective difference.
>
> On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 4:46 PM, Mitar  wrote:
>
> > Hi!
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 2:14 AM, Vi to  wrote:
> > > My activity at en.wiki only deals with crosswiki abuse and lta
> > > "management". So don't be afraid of me but frainkly I don't find your
> > > startup incubator to be notable. In other words I don't find it to be
> > > something I expect to find on an encyclopedia.
> >
> > He he. No, the startup incubator is in the same building, but one
> > floor higher. :-)
> >
> > http://hekovnik.com/
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 10:30 AM, Brill Lyle 
> > wrote:
> > > Okay, I did a pretty thorough scrub and reworking of the article. I
> added
> > > the logo as well as moved it to the main space. As it stood the article
> > > needed help but of course that's typical of new articles.
> > >
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poligon_Creative_Centre
> >
> > Wow! This is amazing! Thank you so much! The article is alive and so
> > much better!
> >
> > Hm, but while I agree that the article has not been of high quality
> > from the start, I am really not sure if 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[John]

Like you where told, Having an article not assert notably, and having an
article be non-notable are effectively the same thing for wikipedia.

You provided several examples specifically cities and plant/animal species,
both of those have inherent notability. However companies do not have such
a default status, thus must assert it. forcing the limited ~500
administrators to review and research each of the 5693 deletions performed
yesterday (of which 1196 where in the main namespace) would place too much
burden on them if the article fails to assert notability or isnt notable
there is no effective difference.

On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 4:46 PM, Mitar  wrote:

> Hi!
>
> On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 2:14 AM, Vi to  wrote:
> > My activity at en.wiki only deals with crosswiki abuse and lta
> > "management". So don't be afraid of me but frainkly I don't find your
> > startup incubator to be notable. In other words I don't find it to be
> > something I expect to find on an encyclopedia.
>
> He he. No, the startup incubator is in the same building, but one
> floor higher. :-)
>
> http://hekovnik.com/
>
> On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 10:30 AM, Brill Lyle 
> wrote:
> > Okay, I did a pretty thorough scrub and reworking of the article. I added
> > the logo as well as moved it to the main space. As it stood the article
> > needed help but of course that's typical of new articles.
> >
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poligon_Creative_Centre
>
> Wow! This is amazing! Thank you so much! The article is alive and so
> much better!
>
> Hm, but while I agree that the article has not been of high quality
> from the start, I am really not sure if the best approach was for it
> to be deleted. What would be a better process in such cases? Why
> articles are not asked to be deleted with more time?
>
> My article was speedy deleted based on:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#A7
>
> What I do not understand is why there is a speedy deletion if article
> does not explain why the subject of the article is not significant,
> instead of deletion if article's subject is not significant? Because
> the first thing could be improved, it is a content issue?
>
> Anyway, what is the process to improve this process? Or should we just
> leave it be and everything is great?
>
>
> Mitar
>
> --
> http://mitar.tnode.com/
> https://twitter.com/mitar_m
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 2:14 AM, Vi to  wrote:
> My activity at en.wiki only deals with crosswiki abuse and lta
> "management". So don't be afraid of me but frainkly I don't find your
> startup incubator to be notable. In other words I don't find it to be
> something I expect to find on an encyclopedia.

He he. No, the startup incubator is in the same building, but one
floor higher. :-)

http://hekovnik.com/

On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 10:30 AM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
> Okay, I did a pretty thorough scrub and reworking of the article. I added
> the logo as well as moved it to the main space. As it stood the article
> needed help but of course that's typical of new articles.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poligon_Creative_Centre

Wow! This is amazing! Thank you so much! The article is alive and so
much better!

Hm, but while I agree that the article has not been of high quality
from the start, I am really not sure if the best approach was for it
to be deleted. What would be a better process in such cases? Why
articles are not asked to be deleted with more time?

My article was speedy deleted based on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#A7

What I do not understand is why there is a speedy deletion if article
does not explain why the subject of the article is not significant,
instead of deletion if article's subject is not significant? Because
the first thing could be improved, it is a content issue?

Anyway, what is the process to improve this process? Or should we just
leave it be and everything is great?


Mitar

-- 
http://mitar.tnode.com/
https://twitter.com/mitar_m

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

Okay, I did a pretty thorough scrub and reworking of the article. I added
the logo as well as moved it to the main space. As it stood the article
needed help but of course that's typical of new articles.

While the citations were okay I added more to them, and found a lot of
English articles as well as a few more Slovenian ones. There's probably a
lot more information out there but I need to stop and assist with the
ongoing editathon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poligon_Creative_Centre

Please feel free to edit, adjust, rework.

:-)

- Erika


*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *

On Sun, Jun 26, 2016 at 11:33 AM, Brill Lyle  wrote:

> Thanks for the responses. I think the overarching thought I have is that
> Wikipedia needs to learn as much from editors as editors need to learn from
> Wikipedia. I'm glad other editors are responding and focusing on this.
>
> I'm doing remote support of an editathon today so I will work on assisting
> on cleanup with this article.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mitar/Poligon
>
> Another hopefully helpful idea:
>
> Use another makerspace/coworkspace entry / entries as examples of
> structure and content:
> - I know about this local one:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebeam_(organization)
> - which led to
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebeam_(organization)#See_also
>
> - Erika
>
> *Erika Herzog*
> Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 11:57 PM, Mitar  wrote:
>
>> Hi!
>>
>> Thanks you for all the responses. It is really great to see this
>> various explanations.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Brill Lyle 
>> wrote:
>> > Gadzooks! The comments you made about friendly editors to a large
>> community
>> > of Wikipedia editors, maybe re-think saying that. I'm having a hard time
>> > getting past these comments. *I* am a friendly editor, and am actually
>> able
>> > to help you.
>>
>> Oh, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I more than appreciate all the
>> help and responses I am getting here. What I mean is that I would hope
>> that it is possible to edit the Wikipedia without knowing editors and
>> admins individually. But this would probably mean even more
>> bureaucratic process, so maybe it is even better like this.
>> Personally, I believe all editors are good people, with a common goal,
>> it seems we just disagree sometimes, but this probably also comes from
>> dissymmetry of information about particular things. Mine about
>> Wikipedia rules, theirs about a particular topic. Addressing this
>> dissymmetry is done through discussions.
>>
>> I see how that comment might offended. Sorry again.
>>
>> > But you have basically said you have too much of a life to
>> > engage, IRC is HARD, etc. Huh.
>>
>> I am trying to present this as an occasional editor. Yes, one solution
>> to issues I have is to get to know Wikipedia rules and community more,
>> to get more engaged and integrated. This is a completely valid
>> approach.
>>
>> But I wonder, is there an alternative path. What about occasional
>> editor who might not have resources to embark on this path.
>> Personally, it seems, I am already walking it. Yes, IRC is doable, of
>> course. But this is because I get activated when I get frustrated and
>> start thinking how to solve the problem. Instead of deactivated. My
>> worry with that comment was that more obstacles are there, harder is
>> to resolve such issues.
>>
>> > Quite frankly, without specifics about the entry -- and the citations
>> used
>> > -- there's nothing anyone can do to help you. ... Which is fine, but I
>> was
>> > trying to help solve the problem.
>>
>> Oh, sorry. I thought you already find the page? So it is this page:
>>
>>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[FRED BAUDER]

On Sun, 26 Jun 2016 15:04:54 +0100
 Lilburne  wrote:

On 25/06/2016 06:49, Mitar wrote:

Hi!

I am an occasional editor of Wikipedia, I read it a lot, I edit
sometimes, and I am at all not familiar with bureaucracies and rules
Wikipedia community has developed through years (call me lazy, but
they simply always look too scary and too many for me to even start
reading them, walls and walls of text). When I interact with 
Wikipedia

I thus try to assume what reasonable rules for creating a
collaborative source of all human knowledge would be.



That is one of the meanings of "Ignore all rules:" Assume the rules 
are reasonable and edit.


Fred Bauder


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

Thanks for the responses. I think the overarching thought I have is that
Wikipedia needs to learn as much from editors as editors need to learn from
Wikipedia. I'm glad other editors are responding and focusing on this.

I'm doing remote support of an editathon today so I will work on assisting
on cleanup with this article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mitar/Poligon

Another hopefully helpful idea:

Use another makerspace/coworkspace entry / entries as examples of structure
and content:
- I know about this local one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebeam_(organization)
- which led to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebeam_(organization)#See_also

- Erika

*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 11:57 PM, Mitar  wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Thanks you for all the responses. It is really great to see this
> various explanations.
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Brill Lyle 
> wrote:
> > Gadzooks! The comments you made about friendly editors to a large
> community
> > of Wikipedia editors, maybe re-think saying that. I'm having a hard time
> > getting past these comments. *I* am a friendly editor, and am actually
> able
> > to help you.
>
> Oh, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I more than appreciate all the
> help and responses I am getting here. What I mean is that I would hope
> that it is possible to edit the Wikipedia without knowing editors and
> admins individually. But this would probably mean even more
> bureaucratic process, so maybe it is even better like this.
> Personally, I believe all editors are good people, with a common goal,
> it seems we just disagree sometimes, but this probably also comes from
> dissymmetry of information about particular things. Mine about
> Wikipedia rules, theirs about a particular topic. Addressing this
> dissymmetry is done through discussions.
>
> I see how that comment might offended. Sorry again.
>
> > But you have basically said you have too much of a life to
> > engage, IRC is HARD, etc. Huh.
>
> I am trying to present this as an occasional editor. Yes, one solution
> to issues I have is to get to know Wikipedia rules and community more,
> to get more engaged and integrated. This is a completely valid
> approach.
>
> But I wonder, is there an alternative path. What about occasional
> editor who might not have resources to embark on this path.
> Personally, it seems, I am already walking it. Yes, IRC is doable, of
> course. But this is because I get activated when I get frustrated and
> start thinking how to solve the problem. Instead of deactivated. My
> worry with that comment was that more obstacles are there, harder is
> to resolve such issues.
>
> > Quite frankly, without specifics about the entry -- and the citations
> used
> > -- there's nothing anyone can do to help you. ... Which is fine, but I
> was
> > trying to help solve the problem.
>
> Oh, sorry. I thought you already find the page? So it is this page:
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Lilburne]

On 25/06/2016 06:49, Mitar wrote:

Hi!

I am an occasional editor of Wikipedia, I read it a lot, I edit
sometimes, and I am at all not familiar with bureaucracies and rules
Wikipedia community has developed through years (call me lazy, but
they simply always look too scary and too many for me to even start
reading them, walls and walls of text). When I interact with Wikipedia
I thus try to assume what reasonable rules for creating a
collaborative source of all human knowledge would be.




I don't know which articles you are referencing and I don't think I need 
to know.
The problem, is that less than 5% of the articles are in any way useful. 
There are
100s of thousands of articles that simply tell me that X x is moth, or a 
beetle and
nothing more. If I know to be looking up X x then I already know that it 
is a moth
and not some form of frog. The there are the 100s of thousands of 
articles that
simply tell me that A B played one game of professional baseball in 
1927. Or the
100s of thousands of articles that simple state that Z is a village in 
Iran with 43

people.

Wikipedia is full of this stuff which you can see by pressing the random 
article
link a few times. If you find anything comprehensive which isn't also 
riddled
with errors. It will almost certainly be a direct cut from 
somewhere else.


Simple the site is overflowing with useless junk that monitoring it has 
become

impossible. Know one can stop Z from being moved to Cambodia, or A B from
being noted for playing tiddlywinks, or indeed turning X x into a frog.


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Vi to]

My activity at en.wiki only deals with crosswiki abuse and lta
"management". So don't be afraid of me but frainkly I don't find your
startup incubator to be notable. In other words I don't find it to be
something I expect to find on an encyclopedia.

Vito

2016-06-26 9:57 GMT+02:00 Mitar :

> Hi!
>
> This is restored version of the article with even more references (11)
> than at the time of deletion (8):
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mitar/Poligon
>
>
> Mitar
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 11:47 PM, Pine W  wrote:
> > A number of us are currently discussing this situation on IRC. (: I
> believe
> > that the immediate concern is being addressed, and we are also discussing
> > ways of improving the deletion process on ENWP.
> >
> > Pine
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 11:21 PM, carl hansen 
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Mitar,
> >> To get a deleted article back, ask an "Administrator" to move it to your
> >> User_page draft
> >> space so you can get your text/references . The text is still in the
> >> system, just not accessible to public. There should be no
> >> problem. You could even ask the Administrator who deleted it, via Talk
> page
> >> , or make request at
> >> Wikipedia:Community_portal
> >> ___
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> >>
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>
>
>
> --
> http://mitar.tnode.com/
> https://twitter.com/mitar_m
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

This is restored version of the article with even more references (11)
than at the time of deletion (8):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mitar/Poligon


Mitar

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 11:47 PM, Pine W  wrote:
> A number of us are currently discussing this situation on IRC. (: I believe
> that the immediate concern is being addressed, and we are also discussing
> ways of improving the deletion process on ENWP.
>
> Pine
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 11:21 PM, carl hansen 
> wrote:
>
>> Mitar,
>> To get a deleted article back, ask an "Administrator" to move it to your
>> User_page draft
>> space so you can get your text/references . The text is still in the
>> system, just not accessible to public. There should be no
>> problem. You could even ask the Administrator who deleted it, via Talk page
>> , or make request at
>> Wikipedia:Community_portal
>> ___
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> 



-- 
http://mitar.tnode.com/
https://twitter.com/mitar_m

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Pine W]

A number of us are currently discussing this situation on IRC. (: I believe
that the immediate concern is being addressed, and we are also discussing
ways of improving the deletion process on ENWP.

Pine

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 11:21 PM, carl hansen 
wrote:

> Mitar,
> To get a deleted article back, ask an "Administrator" to move it to your
> User_page draft
> space so you can get your text/references . The text is still in the
> system, just not accessible to public. There should be no
> problem. You could even ask the Administrator who deleted it, via Talk page
> , or make request at
> Wikipedia:Community_portal
> ___
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[carl hansen]

Mitar,
To get a deleted article back, ask an "Administrator" to move it to your
User_page draft
space so you can get your text/references . The text is still in the
system, just not accessible to public. There should be no
problem. You could even ask the Administrator who deleted it, via Talk page
, or make request at
Wikipedia:Community_portal
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Ruslan Takayev]

Geni stated: "As so many projects have learned so painfully in the
last decade the
English Wikipedia knows what they are doing."

Sorry, but that is not correct and Mitar's case is evidence of this.

Here we have an article on a cultural organization in Slovenia, which
a cursory glance of Google shows is notable, being deleted outright by
an admin who 1) does not speak Slovenian (and therefore unable to
check sources) and 2) who likely did not do the same cursory glance
that I did.

http://www.culture.si/en/Poligon_Creative_Centre is one awesome source
that is not only reliable but also establishes the so-called
importance of Poligon; i.e. "...the biggest artist run space in
Slovenia."

Culture.si is an encyclopedia project of the Slovenian Ministry of
Culture, devoted to the culture of Slovenia. If Culture.si, which is
not editable by the public, has an article on an organization, then so
should Wikipedia.

On http://www.culture.si/en/Culture.si:About under "Enhance Wikipedia!
Reuse our content" (yes, it is CC licensed!) they state "Wikipedia in
English has over 3 million articles but not many of them are related
to culture in/from Slovenia."

This is, unfortunately, true. There is likely to be more articles on
Game of Thrones, than there is on Slovenian culture.

As to the article in question, it is possible that it needed a little
bit of cleanup; the solution in such instances would be put a
cleanup/notability tag on it, and fix issues through collaborative
editings.

If, at the whim of an admin, it was really required to be moved out of
mainspace it could have been moved to Draft namespace, or even user
space, with a note being left for the editor on their talk page.

This would be good practice, and it astounds me that after all the
words written both on the project and on this very list, no-one has
had the foresight to do one of the two above things for Mitar. Even
now, he is asking on IRC for someone to provide him with the text that
was deleted, and that request is being ignored.

Mitar, don't apologize for anything you have done on Wikipedia, or
said on this mailing list, as you have shed some light on how
Wikipedia fails on many levels with new editors.

Warm regards,

Ruslan Takayev

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

Thanks you for all the responses. It is really great to see this
various explanations.

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 4:27 PM, John  wrote:
> If we do not have checks and balances in place wikipedia will quickly get
> overrun with articles on everyone and everything to ever exist regardless
> of the actual notability of the person/place/thing/event.

Hm, while I understand the goal of high quality content, I do not
understand why this has to be so black and white? Existence vs.
non-existence? Why not introducing a third level of content, so that
we would have something like:

- encyclopedic article in the main namespace
- non-encyclopedic draft/stub/sandbox article in the same main namespace
- deleted articles in a special namespace

There could be a special very small set of really deleted articles for
legal reasons.

The main idea I would propose is that all of those articles should be
editable. Even if article is deleted, people should be able to
continue editing it, it should just be made that robots cannot index
them, for example, and that they are under some special namespace. The
reason is that it is much easier if you can edit it and improve it and
then through time maybe things change, maybe somebody becomes notable
through time and their content can be brought back.

The same for so-called non-encyclopedic content which do not merit
entry by current standards. Some of those should be kept with clear
visual tags that content is not yet up to the standard of Wikipedia.
We could even make it so that you first get an full overlay warning
and you have to click through to get to the content.

I think the whole issue of inclusionists and deletionists is so
problematic because we do not step back and observe that there could
be ways to address both concerns with slight changes to the process,
and probably small technical changes.

It is really not necessary to be introducing artificial scarcity.

From what I read this has been going on from 2008 at least, when Paul
Graham included to fix this among his startup ideas:

http://old.ycombinator.com/ideas.html

This is 8 years ago.

I might really do not understand something here, but what is the plan
to solve this problem? Are we just waiting for something to happen?
Why are we not discussing how to find a solution which would find a
consensus in the community? In 8 years there should really already be
a solution?

So, what are issues people have with my proposal above? Why would not
this satisfy both groups?

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 6:19 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
> Mitar is not being specific about the entry and seems more into discussing
> the process.

Oh, I would of course like that we discuss the particular article and
get feedback on it, positive or negative. Anything helps. And I can
learn more. I just do not want us to digress from the topic which for
me is more even important: how to improve this experience for everyone
in the future as well. I will survive. But I am a privileged white
male with a good grasp of technology who experienced various online
communities through years. But what about others? What about people
who might have less command of the English language and would have
issues discussing all this through? Who do not have so much time to
discuss things through?

What we will do about that?

Maybe I should not care and I should just try to address the issues
with my article and move on. But when will then anything change?

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
> Gadzooks! The comments you made about friendly editors to a large community
> of Wikipedia editors, maybe re-think saying that. I'm having a hard time
> getting past these comments. *I* am a friendly editor, and am actually able
> to help you.

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I more than appreciate all the
help and responses I am getting here. What I mean is that I would hope
that it is possible to edit the Wikipedia without knowing editors and
admins individually. But this would probably mean even more
bureaucratic process, so maybe it is even better like this.
Personally, I believe all editors are good people, with a common goal,
it seems we just disagree sometimes, but this probably also comes from
dissymmetry of information about particular things. Mine about
Wikipedia rules, theirs about a particular topic. Addressing this
dissymmetry is done through discussions.

I see how that comment might offended. Sorry again.

> But you have basically said you have too much of a life to
> engage, IRC is HARD, etc. Huh.

I am trying to present this as an occasional editor. Yes, one solution
to issues I have is to get to know Wikipedia rules and community more,
to get more engaged and integrated. This is a completely valid
approach.

But I wonder, is there an alternative path. What about occasional
editor who might not have resources to embark on this path.
Personally, it seems, I am already 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Nathan]

Experiences described by a new editor are valid and meaningful even if, in
relating them, the new editor shows some lack of familiarity with Wikipedia
customs and established doctrines. It's certainly true that the process of
patrolling pages for quality can be, from the perspective of a newbie
writer, abrupt and off-putting. Thanks for telling us about the difficulty
you encountered, Mitar.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[geni]

On 25 June 2016 at 13:14, Vi to  wrote:
> As a deletion I'd say we totally lost at en.wiki, we can maybe tie on other
> wikis.
>

As so many projects have learned so painfully in the last decade the
English Wikipedia knows what they are doing.



-- 
geni

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

Mitar

Gadzooks! The comments you made about friendly editors to a large community
of Wikipedia editors, maybe re-think saying that. I'm having a hard time
getting past these comments. *I* am a friendly editor, and am actually able
to help you. But you have basically said you have too much of a life to
engage, IRC is HARD, etc. Huh.

Quite frankly, without specifics about the entry -- and the citations used
-- there's nothing anyone can do to help you. It seems this is more about
discussing the process and your experience than finding a solution. Which
is fine, but I was trying to help solve the problem.

As others have said, this is not a new issue, or a newly discovered issue.
Saying the problem is systemic and not taking responsibility for yourself
as an editor by learning some of the requirements and rules of Wikipedia
seems to be a bit of an evasion of responsibility, perhaps?

Notability is definitely something that is highly debated within the
community, and I actually think there has been a lot of improvement in this
area. But if your citations -- or your entry -- isn't well done, I believe
that's when there are problems. Again, I would like to see these citations,
Slovenian or otherwise.

And I agree with John that there should be checks and balances. Many people
or subjects do not merit an article, but many others do.

- Erika

*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 3:06 PM, Mitar  wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Thank you for your responses.
>
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle 
> wrote:
> > Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> working
> > on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> able
> > to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
> > help / resolution.
>
> I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
> make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
> discuss principles behind my experience.
>
> I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
> constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
> the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
> reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
> bringing it here.
>
> I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
> why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
> one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.
>
> And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
> clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
> left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
> increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.
>
> Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
> place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
> the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
> I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
> articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
> readers that they are reading such a new article.
>
> (Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
> a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
> cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
> issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
> Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
> system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
> people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
> better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
> example, for all sides.)
>
> > Discussion (with reason):
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page
>
> Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
> local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
> cited and might get a better picture.
>
> The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
> improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
> deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
> started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
> information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
> nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
> to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
> why I am writing to such general list like this.)
>
> > I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
> > moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there,
> and I
> > would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.
>
> But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

Thank you Carl. I will make sure to note re: real world identity going
forward. That was very helpful.

Agree Deletionists seem to be winning -- I've been told a contribution I
made was "too encyclopedic" for Wikipedia, among other nonsense. An entry
about a woman of course. Sometimes it's very absurd, and seems about
someone marking their territory than all of us working together to improve
the content.

It is a detriment to the community, as I know a lot of us adding content
are working really hard, are establishing notability, and using fully cited
information, etc. Really want to add content. But it's definitely not easy.
Blargh :-)

Mitar is not being specific about the entry and seems more into discussing
the process.

But for those newer editors needing help, please know that there is help
out there to get under-represented (but notable) entries and content onto
Wikipedia. There are a lot of initiatives and efforts to support that work.
A lot of us would like to make the encyclopedia representative of diverse
and culturally non-Western entities, to make it better, etc.

I also suspect people flock to editing Wikidata instead of Wikipedia
because maybe it's less contested?

Best,

- Erika


*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 4:11 AM, carl hansen 
wrote:

>
> Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
> within wikipedia
> is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
> User page, it's ok in this case.
>
> Mitar says.
> >
> > Why introducing artificial scarcity?
> >
>
> You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> Deletionist war.
> Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
> travel among
> Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
> BBB. I guess
> the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too much
> to curate
> satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[John]

You are overly simplifying things, One can be both, some things just don't
merit an article, an obscure band working out of a member's garage who have
never had an audience of more than 500 shouldn't have an article because
they really are not notable. On the other hand major artist should have
article. Weighting the balance on that line between what should and
shouldn't be kept is up to the community and which is why they have two
sections of the site dedicated to it (articles for discussion, and deletion
review),

If we do not have checks and balances in place wikipedia will quickly get
overrun with articles on everyone and everything to ever exist regardless
of the actual notability of the person/place/thing/event.

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 7:04 PM, Mitar  wrote:

> Hi!
>
> On Twitter I was pointed to:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia
>
> This is amazing. I think John Oliver should make a segment "Wikipedia
> Deletionism - how is this still a thing?"
>
> I mean, is this a failure of Wikipedia community governance? Reading
> about this seems deletionists are just a vocal minority who benefit
> from the fact that deletion is much stronger action than keeping
> things. Destruction is always easier than creation.
>
> There are 1536 inclusionists just on English Wikipedia:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inclusionist_Wikipedians
>
> And 280 deletionists:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deletionist_Wikipedians
>
> So, how is this still a thing? How can this be put to a vote and
> finally move on? What is Wikipedia's governance process here? Does
> Wikipedia has something like https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ ?
>
>
> Mitar
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Mitar  wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > Thank you for your responses.
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle 
> wrote:
> >> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> working
> >> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> able
> >> to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
> >> help / resolution.
> >
> > I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
> > make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
> > discuss principles behind my experience.
> >
> > I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
> > constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
> > the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
> > reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
> > bringing it here.
> >
> > I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
> > why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
> > one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.
> >
> > And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
> > clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
> > left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
> > increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.
> >
> > Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
> > place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
> > the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
> > I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
> > articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
> > readers that they are reading such a new article.
> >
> > (Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
> > a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
> > cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
> > issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
> > Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
> > system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
> > people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
> > better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
> > example, for all sides.)
> >
> >> Discussion (with reason):
> >>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page
> >
> > Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
> > local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
> > cited and might get a better picture.
> >
> > The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
> > improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
> > deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
> > started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
> > information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
> > nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
> > to 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

On Twitter I was pointed to:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia

This is amazing. I think John Oliver should make a segment "Wikipedia
Deletionism - how is this still a thing?"

I mean, is this a failure of Wikipedia community governance? Reading
about this seems deletionists are just a vocal minority who benefit
from the fact that deletion is much stronger action than keeping
things. Destruction is always easier than creation.

There are 1536 inclusionists just on English Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inclusionist_Wikipedians

And 280 deletionists:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deletionist_Wikipedians

So, how is this still a thing? How can this be put to a vote and
finally move on? What is Wikipedia's governance process here? Does
Wikipedia has something like https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ ?


Mitar

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Mitar  wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Thank you for your responses.
>
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
>> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
>> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
>> to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
>> help / resolution.
>
> I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
> make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
> discuss principles behind my experience.
>
> I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
> constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
> the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
> reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
> bringing it here.
>
> I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
> why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
> one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.
>
> And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
> clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
> left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
> increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.
>
> Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
> place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
> the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
> I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
> articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
> readers that they are reading such a new article.
>
> (Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
> a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
> cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
> issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
> Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
> system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
> people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
> better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
> example, for all sides.)
>
>> Discussion (with reason):
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page
>
> Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
> local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
> cited and might get a better picture.
>
> The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
> improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
> deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
> started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
> information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
> nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
> to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
> why I am writing to such general list like this.)
>
>> I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
>> moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there, and I
>> would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.
>
> But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we resolve it for
> this particular page. Also, if a page is in my sandbox then it is only
> on me to fix it and improve it. If it is its dedicated namespace then
> others can help edit it because they can find it. This is the whole
> power of Wikipedia, that it is not that one person has to write the
> whole article, but that multiple people can collaborate.
>
> Maybe a solution would be that an article can exist under its
> namespace and link then to this sandbox version saying that article is
> still in development. In general Wikipedia could be just an directory
> of pages, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

Thank you for your responses.

On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:
> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
> to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
> help / resolution.

I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
discuss principles behind my experience.

I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
bringing it here.

I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.

And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.

Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
readers that they are reading such a new article.

(Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
example, for all sides.)

> Discussion (with reason):
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page

Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
cited and might get a better picture.

The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
why I am writing to such general list like this.)

> I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
> moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there, and I
> would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.

But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we resolve it for
this particular page. Also, if a page is in my sandbox then it is only
on me to fix it and improve it. If it is its dedicated namespace then
others can help edit it because they can find it. This is the whole
power of Wikipedia, that it is not that one person has to write the
whole article, but that multiple people can collaborate.

Maybe a solution would be that an article can exist under its
namespace and link then to this sandbox version saying that article is
still in development. In general Wikipedia could be just an directory
of pages, some could be edited in Wikipedia and some could be linked
elsewhere, until they are seen as worthy of Wikipedia.

> The structures you propose exist, but if you don't educate yourself on
> procedures and policies and are a casual editor, you might not be aware of
> them. Not trying to be mean or harsh here but I appreciate your passion and
> thoughts and want you to know there are solutions in place

I followed instructions which were presented to me in the speedy
deletion tag: I opened a talk page for an article and objected to
deletion. The result was that next day the article was deleted without
any discussion.

What structures exist here?

I am talking about structures which would prevent deletion, and
structures which would help editors explain local significance of
articles. Structures which might exist to revert deletion are too
late. Editors might not return anymore.

> The best solution I've found if as a newish user you are wanting to create
> new articles (as a short stub) is to do it in your Sandbox and make sure
> you have at least 5 (or even 10) very 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Vi to]

As a deletion I'd say we totally lost at en.wiki, we can maybe tie on other
wikis.

Life is never B/W, grey is everywhere.

Vito

2016-06-25 12:18 GMT+02:00 Gerard Meijssen :

> Hoi,
> The English deletionists may be winning. Thank (include your deity) for
> Wikidata. We can include much more and, we do include much more. It
> includes more people who won an award that what English Wikipedia does.
> Thanks,
>   GerardM
>
> [1]
> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/06/wikidata-lange-taylor-prize.html
>
> On 25 June 2016 at 10:11, carl hansen  wrote:
>
> > On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Mitar,
> > >
> > > ...
> > >
> > > First off:
> > > Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> > working
> > > on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> > able
> > > to dig and find the page, etc.
> > >
> >
> > Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
> > within wikipedia
> > is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
> > User page, it's ok in this case.
> >
> > Mitar says.
> > >
> > > Why introducing artificial scarcity?
> > >
> >
> > You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> > Deletionist war.
> > Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
> > travel among
> > Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
> > BBB. I guess
> > the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too
> much
> > to curate
> > satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.
> >
> > I hope that doesn't discourage you from wikipedia. Also, consider
> > contributing to http://wikinfo.org  , concept is similar but the rules
> are
> > different, more willing to accept polemics and non-neutrality
> >
> >
> > ]]] If you see something, say something. Snowden did. [[[
> > ___
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > 
> >
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The English deletionists may be winning. Thank (include your deity) for
Wikidata. We can include much more and, we do include much more. It
includes more people who won an award that what English Wikipedia does.
Thanks,
  GerardM

[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/06/wikidata-lange-taylor-prize.html

On 25 June 2016 at 10:11, carl hansen  wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Mitar,
> >
> > ...
> >
> > First off:
> > Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> working
> > on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> able
> > to dig and find the page, etc.
> >
>
> Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
> within wikipedia
> is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
> User page, it's ok in this case.
>
> Mitar says.
> >
> > Why introducing artificial scarcity?
> >
>
> You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> Deletionist war.
> Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
> travel among
> Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
> BBB. I guess
> the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too much
> to curate
> satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.
>
> I hope that doesn't discourage you from wikipedia. Also, consider
> contributing to http://wikinfo.org  , concept is similar but the rules are
> different, more willing to accept polemics and non-neutrality
>
>
> ]]] If you see something, say something. Snowden did. [[[
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[carl hansen]

On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle  wrote:

> Hi Mitar,
>
> ...
>
> First off:
> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
> to dig and find the page, etc.
>

Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
within wikipedia
is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
User page, it's ok in this case.

Mitar says.
>
> Why introducing artificial scarcity?
>

You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
Deletionist war.
Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
travel among
Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
BBB. I guess
the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too much
to curate
satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.

I hope that doesn't discourage you from wikipedia. Also, consider
contributing to http://wikinfo.org  , concept is similar but the rules are
different, more willing to accept polemics and non-neutrality


]]] If you see something, say something. Snowden did. [[[
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Brill Lyle]

Hi Mitar,

I haven't been on Wiki-l that long so not sure how (or if) people respond
to this issue, which is somewhat common. I will take a stab at responding
and will try to keep it short and sweet as you said you don't want a lot of
Wiki:Rulz

First off:
Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
help / resolution.

User name: Mitar

Name of page: Poligon

Deletion log:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/delete=Poligon

Discussion (with reason):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page

Second off:

This happens a lot. Here at Wikimedia NYC, where support a lot of
editathons with new users, who tend to want to create new pages, speedy
deletion of articles as well as edits is unfortunately common.

I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there, and I
would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.

Third off:

The structures you propose exist, but if you don't educate yourself on
procedures and policies and are a casual editor, you might not be aware of
them. Not trying to be mean or harsh here but I appreciate your passion and
thoughts and want you to know there are solutions in place

Potential solutions:

The best solution I've found if as a newish user you are wanting to create
new articles (as a short stub) is to do it in your Sandbox and make sure
you have at least 5 (or even 10) very solid citations. Have a friendly
editor take a look at the article before attempting to move it to the main
space.

It is critical you use the citations to establish notability. Not
everything is notable, and especially if the Wiki-en audience isn't
knowledgeable of the subject matter, it's even more important.

I know (and vouch for) DGG and he's queued a few articles I've worked on
for deletion. :-) He and many folks doing Articles for Deletion / Speedy
Deletion are well-intentioned, but sometimes it is a bit of an active
discussion. I suspect that folks who are evaluating deletions are doing it
quickly sometimes, and don't always have the context, but their goal is to
"protect" Wiki content, so

The IRC help channel (
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikipedia-en-help) is also a great
resource -- especially if it's a time zone issue.

Glad you are enjoying the Visual Editor.

Best,

Erika

*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle *
Secretary, Wikimedia NYC

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 1:49 AM, Mitar  wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I am an occasional editor of Wikipedia, I read it a lot, I edit
> sometimes, and I am at all not familiar with bureaucracies and rules
> Wikipedia community has developed through years (call me lazy, but
> they simply always look too scary and too many for me to even start
> reading them, walls and walls of text). When I interact with Wikipedia
> I thus try to assume what reasonable rules for creating a
> collaborative source of all human knowledge would be.
>
> As such I would like to share one positive feedback and one negative
> feedback (frustration). The latter comes from my surprise between what
> I would assume rules would be and what I have experienced. I am
> sharing this to help prevent similar frustrations to other editors who
> maybe be less persistent than me and just give up.
>
> I am also guessing this has come up again and again in the past.
>
> Anyway. First the positive feedback. I love the visual editor! I
> finally switched to it and I am not going back! This is a life saver
> for somebody who just occasionally edits Wikipedia. No need to anymore
> guess if I should use single [ ] or double [[ ]]. No need to try to
> remember the syntax for references every time when I am editing
> Wikipedia after few months pause. Great job!
>
> But the negative feedback comes from me getting too enthusiastic about
> my new visual editor experience and I decided to create some my own
> new articles instead of just editing existing ones. The result was
> that one of such articles was speedily deleted without any due
> process, because it was deemed insignificant, no discussion, in a day.
>
> The whole notion of insignificant and not notable articles comes to me
> as a surprise. It seems to me as a legacy of printed encyclopedias
> which were limited in number of pages printed. But an online
> encyclopedia? How is this possible?
>
> Why I have problems with this:
>
> I created an English article which is significant at least for people
> in Slovenia, with references to local news articles. How can other
> editors who might not know the subject, and are not from Slovenia,
> decide that this is not significant and just delete a page, without
> even starting a discussion? I commented on 

[Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Mitar]

Hi!

I am an occasional editor of Wikipedia, I read it a lot, I edit
sometimes, and I am at all not familiar with bureaucracies and rules
Wikipedia community has developed through years (call me lazy, but
they simply always look too scary and too many for me to even start
reading them, walls and walls of text). When I interact with Wikipedia
I thus try to assume what reasonable rules for creating a
collaborative source of all human knowledge would be.

As such I would like to share one positive feedback and one negative
feedback (frustration). The latter comes from my surprise between what
I would assume rules would be and what I have experienced. I am
sharing this to help prevent similar frustrations to other editors who
maybe be less persistent than me and just give up.

I am also guessing this has come up again and again in the past.

Anyway. First the positive feedback. I love the visual editor! I
finally switched to it and I am not going back! This is a life saver
for somebody who just occasionally edits Wikipedia. No need to anymore
guess if I should use single [ ] or double [[ ]]. No need to try to
remember the syntax for references every time when I am editing
Wikipedia after few months pause. Great job!

But the negative feedback comes from me getting too enthusiastic about
my new visual editor experience and I decided to create some my own
new articles instead of just editing existing ones. The result was
that one of such articles was speedily deleted without any due
process, because it was deemed insignificant, no discussion, in a day.

The whole notion of insignificant and not notable articles comes to me
as a surprise. It seems to me as a legacy of printed encyclopedias
which were limited in number of pages printed. But an online
encyclopedia? How is this possible?

Why I have problems with this:

I created an English article which is significant at least for people
in Slovenia, with references to local news articles. How can other
editors who might not know the subject, and are not from Slovenia,
decide that this is not significant and just delete a page, without
even starting a discussion? I commented on the talk page citing
reasons and it was simply ignored, and everything deleted? Why is not
enough to put a notice there to improve the article? Allow others to
add content, explain more, give their input?

So, a general question is: how can we build a global encyclopedia with
editors who does not understand significance of a particular article
in a local environment?

Why are articles simply deleted instead of guiding users on how to improve them?

Why there is no process involved where interested people could discuss
why is something significant? A voting process where people could say
"oh, I care about this"?

Furthermore, everything happened in a day. There are timezones
involved, some of us have to do other things in our lives. Are you
sure that such short deadlines really foster global community? If this
is something which is regularly done at Wikipedia, I think that this
is coming from a big position of privilege. Of editors who can be in
front of their computers the whole day and engage in editing the
Wikipedia all the time. Not everyone can afford that. Especially
looking at this globally. One day notice? This is crazy.

But my main issue is conceptual. Why is there such a rule in the first
place? Why are we deleting anything except for things which are not
true? Is Internet too small to have all human knowledge in one place?
Why it is a problem if some Wikipedia article is cared by "only" 100
people? 1000 people? Will it run out of disk space?

I think this comes from the reason that we are trying to copy what is
encyclopedia too much without adapting the idea to the 21st century.
It is like academic papers which had selection because it was costly
to print it, but in 21st century we can have then academic journals
which simply accept all submissions, only that they are technically
sound (in case of Wikipedia, that they have structure of an
encyclopedia article, with all other rules about the content of the
article, and references). See Plos One:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLOS_ONE This revolutionized academia.
And I think Wikipedia should do a similar thing.

One reason I found is that the issue why deleting articles is that
there is a limited attention of editors. If there are too many
articles editors would not be able to maintain good quality for all of
them.

I cannot agree with this argument. This is the most short-sighted
argument ever. First, all articles start by being low quality and then
they improve. Second, by allowing new articles to exist, you are also
getting new editors who care about those new articles. The article I
created? Guess what, you would have at least one editor (me) who would
care about it. Now you have 0.5 editor less (me) who cares about
anything else less now.

This is a feedback loop. More content you allow, more editors you will
have. Invite