Comment by neilk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neilk | Hacker News Reader

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Dude, have you read WP:Notability?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability

In one sentence:

"If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list."

Notability isn't really that much of a judgment call.

Also, it doesn't necessarily apply to the creation of new articles. Stub articles are usually not well sourced at all.

The real story of the article is that Wikipedia's interface really does suck. It really is hard to figure out issues like this. It's even hard to monitor pages you want to protect, or have some interest in.

So, while the Wikipedians involved in the deletion process do have some grounds for their actions, it's left to the wiki-insiders to defend Wikipedia. That sucks. Until the day comes when a non-Wikipedian can arrive on the site, figure out what happened in the deletion process in 30 seconds, and then pronounce whether it was good or bad in some informed manner, we won't have an encyclopedia that truly anyone can edit.

But you know as well as anybody that quite often in AfD notability is firmly established and an overzealous WP nerd will just simply ignore it because they feel the need to protect the electrons they believe have come to serve them in their virtual fiefdom.

And to be clear we're not talking about cases of obvious vandalism, there's plenty of cases where perfectly WP conformant edits are made, marked for deletion and then the inevitable shit fight where sources are provided clearly establishing notability are provided only to be tossed aside.

If a reason for ignoring the provided evidence is given it almost always surrounds the following terms in the sentence you quoted:

"significant", "reliable", "independent"

I don't follow AfD closely. I'm a programmer. But I just had a look through the latest AfDs and I have to say there's little I disagreed with.

This one was sponsored by a very prolific Wikipedian, though, who has a particular affection for the rule that one event doesn't make you notable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion...

Which is totally outrageous. It's tempting to conclude the nominator was just an idiot, or possibly pursuing some conservative agenda. But by Hanlon's Razor, I assume that the nominator was just less aware of this story than others. Maybe it's a good thing that such articles can be challenged. I wish it had been speedy-kept though; it's embarassing to have the deletion templates on the article.

There is unanimous agreement that the article must be kept, so far. So, the system is working. Kind of.

Actually; that is a prime example of where the deletion process is failing - because the only option is "delete or not delete".

That article is a problem; if you read it, it is not a biography, it describes an event. Which, I suspect, is the point the nominator was trying to make.

For a reader, the content is better presented in an article on Women's rights in Egypt (or activism in Egypt) with the title redirected there.

Alternatively there is always Wikinews.

Looking through the list of deletion candidates I saw merging as an alternative to a delete.

Right. Being able to flag anything for deletion, then going through the hassle of defending it puts the onus on not deleting it, not on those who want to delete it, which I think it wrong.

That day will probably never arrive, because the stakes are so high that any simple, trivially navigable process would immediately be gamed.

I refuse to believe that logic. We have to decide if we're the people who believe that information is best dealt with by elites, or whether we are the ones who believe that every single person has something to contribute.

When I put it this way to other Wikipedians it usually shuts them up. ;)

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