Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

As a "deletionist" (at least in theory if not in practice) I welcome this project.

I'm glad that somebody is finally doing this, instead of just sitting around complaining that wikipedia isn't what they want it to be. Complaining that wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information is like complaining that Target isn't a fine lobster restaurant -- it was never intended to be and it's fine the way it is. There's enough "inclusionists" out there that I'm sure they can build a parallel encyclopaedia with a slightly different philosophy, and if (as I suspect is true) it turns out to be swamped with useless and unverifiable information (not to mention a huge number of vanity pages) then at least we'll know.

However:

[it] will discard ‘notability’ and other ‘encyclopedic’ standards in favor of ‘true and useful’

I'm not sure how "useful" differs from "notable" and I suspect they're just going to wind up having the same arguments about different words. For instance, is a ten thousand word biography of my cat both true and useful? It's certainly true, and it might be useful to someone at some point, so why delete it?

"Complaining that wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information"

Nobody's making that complaint, so that's a classic straw man. The complaint is the legitimate information is being kept off the project by people who don't think it's important enough for wikipedia. I recently argued against the proposed deletion of an article on a charter school at its AfD. Despite the school being mentioned in many articles, people were arguing that elementary schools simply aren't worthy of mention on Wikipedia. It is this attitude that we oppose, not that "that wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information".

Nobody's making that complaint, so that's a classic straw man.

Well, I've met at least one person who advocated the idea that wikipedia should contain any information that was true. When I asked him if I then should be able to create a many-terabyte article entitled "List of random numbers that hugh3's computer generated at [such and such a date and time]" then he said it should. So there are certainly some folks taking up that extreme position.

Otherwise you're just arguing at the margin. Maybe the notability criteria for schools are too strict. Maybe they're not. I can't think of anything about which I give less of a damn. (For what it's worth I checked, and my high school is certainly listed while one of my two primary schools is and the other [no less intrinsically notable] redirects to the particular suburb in which it is located].)

On notability, if wikipedia only contains things that are generally known, what's the point of putting that information in a reference resource? The point of a resource like WP is so people can find things that they may not know.

Absurd examples like people's cats and random numbers are not really the problem and I suspect you know that. The problem is not the notability guidelines per se. It's the abusive use of the guidelines (evoked as gospel) by deletionists to keep n00bs out of their playpen.

On notability, if wikipedia only contains things that are generally known, what's the point of putting that information in a reference resource? The point of a resource like WP is so people can find things that they may not know.

Now there's a strawman. All the facts on wikipedia are widely known to some group of people, but nobody knows 'em all. Though actually, you've just given me another excuse to link to my new blog in which I'm (perhaps slightly facetiously) attempting to become an expert on everything by reading every one of wikipedia's 3.5 million articles: http://projectomniscience.blogspot.com/ ... I only started it two days ago but I've already done both aardvarks and zebras.

Absurd examples like people's cats and random numbers are not really the problem and I suspect you know that.

They would be, if you removed the notability guidelines. Well, the cats would be.

It's the abusive use of the guidelines (evoked as gospel) by deletionists to keep n00bs out of their playpen.

Possibly. I've never actually tried editing wikipedia, only reading it. On the other hand, I have been through Articles for Deletion a few times and the vast majority of stuff that gets deleted clearly is crap -- vanity articles and the like.

I don't think removing notability guidelines is the right call either. I think treating the guidelines as guidelines is the right, simple and obvious call.

Unfortunately, notability guidelines are treated like gospel by the deletionists. In cases where stuff is wrongfully deleted, the entire discussion will center around notability, usually with source material references being dismissed out of hand by an overzealous admin.

I'm sure there should be some kind of penalty of some sort or another for editor types who habitually flag AfD and then have them overturned, and that would remedy some of it. But to be honest, speculative discussions about how the foundation could and should deal with the issue have gone nowhere for the better part of half a decade.

Possibly. I've never actually tried editing wikipedia, only reading it.

You really should sometime. I've had things deleted so fast that I didn't even have time to save my edit, then move down to the references section to paste in my references, I swear there are just bots now that monitor new edits and immediately revoke any changes.

It's a pity really.

Good luck reading all the articles! I usually get lost of an extended tour of interesting links whenever I go to the WP.

Not bots, but users of Huggle and the like. With a thousand or so "vandal patrollers" getting fed the recent changes queue in real time, most edits get pretty heavily scrutinized. Unfortunately, many vandal fighters get overzealous and overstep their bounds.

It's at the point where directly editing anything is a waste of time for new users. At most I'll put a comment on a talk page and hope the cabal likes a proposed edit and does it themself.

The person you cite is in no way representative of inclusionists. The analogous position would be to say that deletionists believe Wikipedia should only have articles on subjects that Britannia has articles on. You might be able to find a person who holds such a view, and it might be right to call them a deletionist. It would be disingenuous, however, to say that deletionists hold those views.

The sad part is how often the type of pattern you identified is used, especially on the 24 hour "news" networks by pundits of all sorts. Take any group and find the extreme or hangers on then use those people to define the group as a whole.

Here's just one example. There are thousands of companies and people on Crunchbase that are not notable enough for Wikipedia. Having that information on Crunchbase is extremely useful.

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