Wikipedia entries: from flood to trickle
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Submissions of new articles to Wikipedia are slowing from a flood to a trickle, “and the discussion pages are increasingly filled with arguments and cryptic references to policy documents,” says The Telegraph.
‘Deletionists’ are behind it all, says the story.
Anyone can edit Wikipedia entries all and, “the English-language Wikipedia is governed by a group of a little over 1,000 administrators drawn from the ranks of enthusiastic editors” and only they have the power to, “finally delete an article or bring it back from the dead,” is the story.
But, it goes on, these editors are becoming dust the latter saying an encyclopedia isn’t a dumping ground for facts while the former say Wikipedia’s great advantage is: it has no space limit and that an entry of interest to just a few people is justified.
“The notability debate has spread across the discussions like a rash,” The Telegraph states, continuing:
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, created a stub entitled Mzoli’s Meats. It was one sentence: “Mzoli’s Meats is a butcher shop and restaurant located in Guguletu township near Cape Town, South Africa”, with a link to a blog.
It was deleted in 22 minutes in a unilateral action by Chad Horohoe, a 19-year-old Wikipedia administrator who goes by the name ^demon.
The two weeks of furious debate that followed was summarised by user Kelly Martin, who said: “The Wikipedia that Jimbo [Wales] originally created takes short stubs like the one he created and turns them into articles; stubs should only be deleted when there is no reasonable hope that they will ever cease to be stubs. Unfortunately, in the past few years Wikipedia has changed; it now takes short stubs and throws them in the trash can, and excoriates those who have the temerity to create them. This stub is being saved only because it was created by Jimbo.”
Mzoli’s Meats now has an extensive entry and is unlikely to be deleted.
Meanwhile, “Splinter websites are already springing up to rescue articles removed from the mainstream Wikipedia,” says the story, adding:
“As a new generation rises that edits with an axe, the old timers’ hopes of maintaining a unified Wikipedia are beginning to fade.”
Also See:
The Telegraph – Wikipedia: an online encyclopedia torn apart, October 11, 2007
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for the official download, and here for details. Click here or here to learn what technologies may help you by-pass censorship in your area.
October 11th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Am I the only one finding the fact that the article was
“… deleted in 22 minutes … by Chad Horohoe, a 19-year-old Wikipedia administrator…”
a bit amusing and scary at the same time?
I know that a 19 year old is not a “kid” per se, but at the same time, can be, and in this case shown to be, a bit behind, when it comes to being able to decide what is good for a comunity or not.
While I do not feel that a organization should run by “elders”, and that new blood can help an organization, whether it be a company or a online site like Wiki, but at the same time there are many cases like this where a younger person goes on power trips and shoots off making decisions, not based on experience.
I mean lets face it, if a realitively “newbee” person is going out deleting enteries by the founder, something is really wrong. Sure this is at an online comunity, but in any other real-world situation, this “kid” would have been seveirely repremanded for what he did.
just my two cents
October 12th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Deletionists are at their worst where images are concerned. Instead of resisting the chilling effects of copyright expansionism, they embrace the chilling effects with gusto.
Wikipedia policy presumes all images are copyright infringements unless proven otherwise, and despite a clear lack of consensus behind that policy, many Wikipedia administrators enforce it more aggressively than any other policy. One administrator goes so far as to have any images lacking a meticulous and long-winded “use rationale” axed via automated bot. He wears the controversy surrounding his bot proudly, like a badge of honor, and dismisses complaints with a casual “RTFP” attitude.
And never mind that the more editorial control a site’s administrators exercise, the easier it is for copyright plaintiffs to defeat a DMCA Safe Harbor defense. The safe harbor is for neutral service providers who do not exercise editorial control of content. Every time Wikipedia administrators meddle with user contributions, even to advance the cause of copyright expansionism, they’re drifting further and further away from that safe harbor.
I, myself, gladly provide the meticulous and long-winded “use rationales” the policies require. At the same time, I am equally glad to point out just how much time I waste doing so, when I could be adding quality encyclopedic information rather than unnecessary, counter-productive mumbo jumbo, that, if anything, makes Wikipedia an easier target for copyright lawsuits. And I am even more glad to point out just how much valuable information has been pointlessly severed from the encyclopedia, despite being obvious fair uses, because administrators casually, even automatically, axe content, but can’t be bothered to create a similar bot to provide those obvious fair use rationales.