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0 pointsjacques_chester15y ago0 comments

> Hopefully your professors also drummed into you that anyone can write a paper and send it to a conference -- the kicker is if it actually makes an impact. Isn't that more-or-less the definition of notability?

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

> I didn't nominate them for deletion because of hard drive space. I nominated them because there was nothing to say about them barring a superficial overview of syntax.

OK, so you thought they sucked.

Did you:

1. Decide to improve them? Nah, not the wikipedia way.

2. Slap on one of the numerous tags saying "this article needs improvement"? Nah, not the wikipedia way.

3. Mark it for deletion because you thought the article was sucky and took no action to improve it? Ding ding ding!

> I didn't delete the articles -- the Wikipedia administrators did.

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

edit: slightly politified per tptacek's request.

0 comments

tibbon15y ago

I've seen several deletionists try to wipe their hands clean of responsibility in saying "I didn't delete it, I just nominated it!", which always strikes me as really insincere as they (as you pointed out) definitely played a part.

rick_204715y ago

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

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

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

j_baker15y ago

You ever notice how executions always have 10 people doing something that can be done by one person? It's so that individual people don't feel responsible for the execution.

By that same token, it's easier to not feel responsible for deleting a page if it's a team effort. I would imagine that the admin who deleted them would probably say "I was just responding to complaints."

halostatue15y ago

I could be wrong, but the Wikipedia admins aren't responsible for creating pages or accepting pages. That's an "editor", e.g., a standard user. Admins can make pages, but I guarantee it was an interested editor/user who created the Alice ML page, not an admin acting as an admin.

Still, Wikipedia's deletionism is arrant nonsense up with which we should not put.

derleth15y ago

> Still, Wikipedia's deletionism is arrant nonsense up with which we should not put.

Everyone's a deletionist about something.

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