Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Duh, I don't know why I said "speedy deletion" throughout my comment - obviously my brain is not happy after 6 hours' sleep. I was intending to refer to the usual deletion process for non-notablilty.
Ah. That makes a bit more sense. I don't think I would have objected at all to having to justify the article.
And with that statement about the Kiwi FooCamp being an ongoing event, well, yes, it certainly fulfils any requirements for notability that I can think of.
That does seem to be the way it's leaning. People have also deduced that the main Foo Camp article needs improving itself. I'd have a crack myself if I wasn't otherwise occupied.
It's just a shame that some sucky editors can give the rest of us a bad name, by being such rude pricks, and not giving something that has obviously been written in the right spirit the appropriate benefit of the doubt.
Yeah, it was the flat-out lack of benefit of the doubt that I thought was weird.
I'm trying not to campaign here, but this is new to me and, well, I discuss everything in the blog. I'm encouraged to see someone agreeing in the AFD discussion that there are topic areas where "unreliable" sources such as blogs (and more specifically, expert blogs) are very likely to be more credible than the work of "proper" journalists.
One thing I've realised is that WP culture isn't actually the same thing as Net culture, and can in fact be very different ...
-
Rob McKinnon of the NZ version of They Work For You emailed me to note an interesting example of mindless zealotry to which he was subjected.
His (non-profit, non-commercial) site offers pages for each MP which, among other things, automatically provide the Hansard of that MP's most recent speeches in the House. Ingenious and bloody useful.
But solely because he had added links to those pages to the articles for several MPs, an editor declared he was "spamming" and removed all the links. Robert politely discussed it with him, and pointed out that such links to the original British version of They Work for You had been in use on Wikipedia since 2004, but the gatekeeper was unmoved.
I thought the depressing part was the editor's declaration at the end of his notice of deletion:
I have no opinion on the website or if it adds any extra information.
And clearly, no intention of doing anything so common as finding out.
Robert gave up. WP users lost out. Farcical.
-
Now, I find both you, Russell, and Juha, completely legitamate and "above board" and I dont want to suggest any improprietry on your behalf, but it seems a strange position for Wikipedai to be taking that essentially encourages "forging" of proof, to continue the existance of the entry.
I know, I know. Already one of the MSM articles in the external links is an Idealog story by me (I didn't post it, one of the helpful editors did, whilst admitting he didn't know if Idealog was credible), and I'm really wary of manufacturing another story to support my own article.
The other issue is that this is the kind of subject area where a good blogger is very likely to be more accurate than a MSM journalist, even one with editorial oversight.
You tend to assume that Wikiculture is in lockstep with Internet culture, but I'm discovering that's not necessarily the case. It's quite interesting, and I hope it will turn out okay.
-
I can totally see why it was put in the Speedy Deletion category, but not that it was yanked twice with no discussion. That's bloody rude.
It was. And the fact that the hostile editor has shown no interest in the AFD discussion seems like more rudeness to me.
I did read up on deletion policy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy
And I don't think even the relatively brief original text met the listed standard for speedy deletion of "patent nonsense, advertising, pure vandalism" or "utter rubbish". The "proposed deletion" standard might have been reasonable:
articles which appear to have genuine content but which the deleter feels are not suitable content for Wikipedia, such as advertising, vanity articles, and the like
But even that seems a trifle harsh, as evidenced by the fact that no one is now seriously suggesting deletion as opposed to a merge.
The reason that I can see why it's a candidate for Speedy Deletion is that there is no indication that this is an ongoing event (if it is)
Yes there is:
The organisers plan to hold it annually in the New Zealand summer.
I could have added that one (and I suspect, two) of the sponsors have already committed to supporting the 2008 event, that a mailing list and a wiki are keeping delegates in contact, several notable international figures have committed to attending next year, and that the venue has been made available, but that seemed like over-egging it. It doesn't seem right to clutter an article with detailed justifications for its existence.
It was also a bit vexing to see the event declared "not notable" when there had been no opportunity to even write text describing it. Although it appears that the fact that Jimmy Wales once said attendance at Foo Camp made someone notable counts in our favour ;-)
Anyway, as you say, it is already better-written than most Wikipedia articles, and I hope someone will help add some pictures while I'm busy over the next few days.
This isn't really about any preciousness on my part: I could do without the grief, and I don't need to write WP articles to affirm myself. But I think everyone who attended (and they included people who have played a major role in the rest of us here having the Internet in the first place) perceived that it was both significant, and the start of something.
I'd prefer to it persist, but if it is merged, it will rather shame the rest of the US Foo Camp article ...
-
Like most professional writers you are protective of what you write and expect editors to be collaborators not adversaries. Unfortunately Wikipedia isn't always like that.
Thanks. I'm still struggling to see a basis in good faith for what happened - not least because it seemed to trample on Wikipedia's own process - but, as you suggest, I'm just trying to calmly (and politely) promote my position, and the position of the delegates (about a dozen of the people I've listed as attending have their own Wikipedia articles, which one would think has some bearing on how "notable" the event is).
-
Wiki update: I think we're alright now. gadfium, a prolific NZ-based editor, has come in and been helpful and constructive, and there's no sign of our hostile editor from yesterday.
Essentially, we have five days to improve the article to the point where no one will want to delete it, which I think we can do. Campers who feel confident with editing are welcome to add external links, and add names to the list of notable campers.
Phew. It was getting weird there.
-
(puts up hand for invite next year, want someone to do a how-to-hardware-hacking talk? :-)
Oh yes. We like the hardware hackers ...
-
Note that you should not post anything in defence of the article or otherwise comment on things there, as it appears that that is frowned up on by the Wikipedians.
Yes. When I went back to the page and saw their big box reading ...
ATTENTION! If you came here because somebody asked you to, or you read a message on a forum, please note that this is not a ballot, but rather a discussion to establish a consensus amongst Wikipedia editors on whether a page is suitable for this encyclopedia.
... I thought, damn, there must be some flaming or something. But there was one perfectly reasonable message from a new entrant to the discussion.
I've tried to be measured and reasonable, but there's a defensive and proprietary element to the Wikipedians' style that doesn't seem very helpful.
-
Only hitch so far: a ridiculous Wikipedia edit war yesterday, which began when someone hit the new article on Kiwi Foo Camp with a speedy deletion tag (which should be reserved for spam, vandalism and "utter rubbish") and then ignored the "hangon" tag to contest deletion and deleted first the text and then the whole article.
The same person then appeared to be threatening to go after the main Foo Camp article on the basis that it was "spam", while offering a string of different justifications to Juha and I for the Kiwi Foo Camp article's deletion.
Eventually, a grown-up came by and put it into the "articles for deletion" process, which at least allowed some proper discussion (at which point our hostile editor disappeared, hopefully for good). The upshot looks like being that the Kiwi Foo Camp article will be merged into the main Foo Camp article, which I guess is fine, but Juha and I still haven't been able to get anyone to acknowledge that what happened to us yesterday was ridiculous.
If you enter "Kiwi Foo Camp" into Wikipedia you can follow the whole thrilling story in the Talk pages ...
-
Juha has more pics:
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 2225 2226 2227 2228 2229 … 2279 Older→ First