[HN Gopher] A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page ___________________________________________________________________ A prominent composer lost his Wikipedia page Author : b5 Score : 107 points Date : 2022-07-27 16:58 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (tedgioia.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (tedgioia.substack.com) | kevinpet wrote: | > Just a few months before Donna Strickland won the Nobel, a | Wikipedia editor had smugly insisted that she wasn't a notable | physicist. | | I heard about this at the time, and it stood out to me as totally | missing the point. It's completely 100% possible that winning the | Nobel Prize elevated Dr. Strickland from not notable to notable. | A physicist who has done work that could win a Nobel Prize is | probably getting close to notable but it's hard for an | encyclopedia that doesn't engage in original research to | adjudicate that. Actually winning is that third party recognition | that wikipedia's notability standards are supposed to rely on. | hyperpape wrote: | This isn't the case. I'm familiar with the standards applied | for living philosophers, and they fall far short of the level | of "future Nobel prize winner" (A quick glance at Wikipedia | show I took classes from 7 such individuals while in grad | school). Similarly for physicists: there are over 1000 21st | century physicists listed on Wikipedia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:21st- | century_physicis.... | unixbane wrote: | > A few days ago, composer Bruce Faulconer found that his | Wikipedia entry had suddenly disappeared. This was surprising | because his music is known and beloved all over the world--in | fact, it has been heard in more than 80 countries. | | Hmmm how do I already know from the first paragraph this article | is bogus? Let me search this person I've never heard of. Oh, | there's nothing. He's literally not noteable. "Heard in more than | 80 countries" is something small independent internet artists did | 20 years ago, and they didn't get wikipedia pages either. | solardev wrote: | Hmm, maybe we'd all learn something about this guy if only he | had a Wikipedia page. Guess his life's work is too expensive | for Wikipedia's hard drives. | Bud wrote: | I get why people lie sometimes. I get why people mislead, or | fudge facts, or gaslight. | | But it's genuinely hard to figure out why you'd post something | like this when spending literally 3 seconds on a Google search | shows that you just completely made it up and didn't do any | kind of search at all. Why tell a lie that is so easily and | completely disproven? | causi wrote: | Dude he's the guy that did the music for Dragonball, a thirty | billion dollar franchise. I'm shocked he was removed from | Wikipedia. | ginko wrote: | Pretty sure much of the famous music for Dragon Ball like | "Makafushigi Adventure!"[1] and "Cha-La Head-Cha-La"[2] was | made by Japanese composers. | | Did he do the music for the US dub maybe? | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makafushigi_Adventure! [2] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cha-La_Head-Cha-La | kipchak wrote: | Yes, the US (Funimation?) version and original has | different soundtracks, both for the opening and for in the | show. I'm not sure which was used in other regions where | the show was popular, my guess would be south/central | America got the Funimation music. | | For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgJ1heSrskY | ginko wrote: | >my guess would be south/central America got the | Funimation music. | | The Spanish dubs used the original Japanese soundtrack | afaik. | fedeb95 wrote: | Don't you know the US is the entire world? Every person | that writes music for a show that aired in the US is | notable by definition! | mynameishere wrote: | While I've never heard of Dragonball--and I'm sure it's | really great--I'll make a wild guess that 100s or 1000s of | people worked on it in one capacity or another and that | doesn't really make them "Notable". | unixbane wrote: | stevenjgarner wrote: | Is this a different Bruce Faulconer? [0]. Google has 176,000 | results. | | [0] https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0269023/ | canjobear wrote: | I recognized the name immediately. | clint wrote: | Unixbane Has Spoken! | oezi wrote: | Now that Google is down-ranking Wikipedia anyway couldn't | Wikipedia relax their notability requirements? I understood why | they didn't want anybody to create a marketing page for | themselves ten years ago, but I don't understand the rational | now. The long term goal for Wikipedia should be to collect | information on anything that is of interest to one or more | person. | peterlk wrote: | Wikipedia actually seems like a good replacement for personal | "websites" in the social media era. I'd love to see the | wikimedia social network | standardUser wrote: | Do you mean this? | | https://wt.social/ | | I joined long ago but have never used it. | echelon wrote: | > Now that Google is down-ranking Wikipedia anyway | | Can you expand on this? I wasn't aware Google penalized | Wikipedia now. | | Why? | Viliam1234 wrote: | Just a guess, but probably because Wikipedia does not contain | AdSense, so there is no money in putting it to the search | results. | | No one would officially admit this, of course, but whenever I | see that Google prioritizes X over Y, X is usually a type of | thing more likely to contain AdSense than Y. | tshaddox wrote: | > The long term goal for Wikipedia should be to collect | information on anything that is of interest to one or more | person. | | That is very explicitly not a goal of Wikipedia. Of course | you're free to disagree with what Wikipedia ought to be, but | they're at least fairly clear and explicit about their own | goals. | powera wrote: | It wouldn't be entirely unfair to say that Wikipedia's policies | are designed to keep people like Mr. Gioia off the site and out | of the decision making process. | | Considering that he doesn't want to learn what Wikipedia's | policies are, or why they exist (and his calling people who | disagree with him "trolls"), I am inclined to think that is a | good thing. | jtbayly wrote: | Wow. I thought Wikipedia was supposed to be a public resource. | I wasn't aware certain people were supposed to stay off the | site. | dwringer wrote: | I once tried to edit an article about a scientist who had | developed a bit of surrounding controversy over his studies | in parapsychology. Having no real knowledge of the debate, I | didn't add or remove any information; I just felt the | introduction had been written in an overtly non-neutral way | by a past editor. So, I removed a couple of words like "hoax" | and trimmed one or two sentences so that they didn't come off | as a character assassination (they had contained unsourced | editorializations). Specifics aside, the article had | explicitly violated Wikipedia's policies on using NPOV | language. | | My edits were reverted within 24 hours, and the talk page was | updated with an admonition to my IP address (I'd posted | without logging in) claiming I'd been implicated in | "unsavory" activities that could be found by Googling the IP | (it was a dynamic IP, but of course I tried and found | nothing) and making vague threats that I should not attempt | such edits again. That's the last time I edited anything on | Wikipedia. | jtbayly wrote: | That's editing. I mean, I can understand that certain | people might not be great at editing. | | But I'm shocked that they would say there are people they | don't even want on the site. | dwringer wrote: | I can't tell if you're suggesting that my edits were | simply bad, and typically I would accept that is a | possibility; but, even then, it was the fact that I was | threatened essentially with being swatted. There was no | feedback on the edits that I made. Just unfounded | assertions that my IP address was involved in something | "unsavory" and that I would face severe consequences if I | continued such edits. It made me feel very unwelcome and | I assume many other people have the same experience on | Wikipedia. | | I realize the futility of trying to convince you that my | edits were warranted, I guess. The article has since been | updated, however, and the non-neutral tone that I'd tried | to fix has been removed, so apparently somebody else | ultimately did succeed. | pastage wrote: | There are many things to discuss about that, first were | your edits correct, secondly how can you make such edits | and be accepted on Wikipedia. It doesn't seem like you | care about reflecting why you failed at the second one. | | I guess that is a field of research how does Wikipedia | handle anon edits. I have done thousands of anon edits on | Wikipedia and have very low deletion rate, but I guess I | kept away from tone and opinion. | dwringer wrote: | Regarding the topic of making edits that would be | accepted, I assume it was subject matter that rubbed | someone the wrong way because as I said it was basically | a character assassination of the article's subject. I | strongly suspect the writer of the original non-neutral | content had a browser extension or bot monitoring the | page for any edits. I reflected on it quite a bit (I'm | not sure how you concluded I've no interest in that), but | I just think it creates a bit of an issue with the | community being unwelcoming to newcomers. On the | receiving end of it there's not really any way to know | why someone decided to make unfounded accusations against | you in a public place without engaging them further, | which seemed unwise to me. | | I agree with you that it looks like a good field for some | research, I don't know how the issue of anonymous edits | could be handled to productively stamp out abusive edit | behavior. | jtbayly wrote: | Wait a minute. I wasn't questioning your editing at all. | I was only pointing out that this guy is openly admitting | not only that he doesn't want some people editing, but | that he doesn't even want some people to have access to | Wikipedia. That's truly shocking to me. | dwringer wrote: | I get you. I'm sorry that I got a bit defensive, and I | didn't mean to detract from your point. | tgv wrote: | If the policy is "you must feature in Grove's", Wikipedia | becomes even more derivative than it already is. | erik_seaberg wrote: | As it was always intended be. Secondary sources only, no | original research. | fcatalan wrote: | It would be about 99% unfair. In my experience Wikipedia style | moderation setups are a magnet for small minded petty | martinets. Of course rules and some criteria are needed, but | soon those people run over any shred of common sense while | wielding them. | leereeves wrote: | > It wouldn't be entirely unfair to say that Wikipedia's | policies are designed to keep people like Mr. Gioia off the | site and out of the decision making process. | | Why? Who is he and what has he done that might make Wikipedia | dislike him? | pklausler wrote: | Ted Gioia is a prolific author on jazz musicology and | history; I have several of his books and find them to be | informative and entertaining. | [deleted] | [deleted] | chipotle_coyote wrote: | Getting huffy about Mr. Gioia's choice of language doesn't | really engage with the substance of his complaint. Is there a | stated Wikipedia policy that composers must have an entry in | the _Grove Dictionary of Music_ to be considered notable? I bet | there isn 't. If Gioia is correct in saying that Wikipedia | editors are insisting on that, then those Wikipedia editors are | applying an arbitrary standard. | | They are, in a word, _trolling._ | | And I am inclined to think calling them out is a good thing. | powera wrote: | He's not correct. One editor of six in the deletion | discussion mentioned that they had checked multiple sources | (including Grove) and Faulconer wasn't in them. | atoav wrote: | Sorry, but _I_ think that composer _is_ relevant. So this is | not about knowing policy, it is about disagreement. | powera wrote: | One of the reasons for the policies is so questions such as | "should this person have an article" don't devolve into | popularity polls. | _aavaa_ wrote: | I'm sorry, but "is this musician notable" literally is a | popularity contest. | tshaddox wrote: | Not exactly. A musician who is very popular but for whom | there is not significant coverage in reliable independent | sources would likely not meet the notability | requirements. | powera wrote: | Two different objections. | | First, while the most written-about musicians are also | generally the most popular, there isn't a strict | correlation. | | Second, there is a vast difference between a decision- | process of "if the sources provided show that this person | is popular, they are notable" and "if three of the four | Wikipedia editors surveyed like this person's music, they | are notable". | _aavaa_ wrote: | 1. You are both correct and incorrect. The most well | written about musicians are the most popular by | definition within the group of people who write about | musicians. A) This does not mean that those musicians are | popular within some sizeable portion of the general | population. B) The preferences of the people writing | about musicians (that wikipedia will accept as a source) | are not guaranteed to be representative of the population | at large, in fact I'd wager that essentially guaranteed | to be not true at different points in time and for | different genres. | | Wikipedia is choosing to conflate the popularity of an | artist amongst the writing group and the popularity in | the broader public. And when the two groups disagree, | they are choosing to go with those who write rather than | with the broader public. | | 2. This isn't about "the sources provided shot that he's | popular", it's do we acknowledge that their contribution | is defined as popular. Dragon Ball Z is/was an incredibly | popular and influential anime. | | I guess all it takes now is for someone at WIRED who | loved Dragon Ball Z to publish an article or two about | them and they suddenly become notable. | adamrezich wrote: | but that's not how Wikipedia works. their policies don't | care how popular or well-known someone or something is, | what matters is whether or not journalists, news outlets, | and other such groups (who must themselves be "notable") | find them "notable" enough to cover. the Philip Roth | story mentioned in the article is one such example of | this--it's a good thing Mr. Roth worked at The New Yorker | (a verified "notable" news outlet) so he could set the | record straight about his own article, otherwise he | would've been shit outta luck! | | it's really odd the degree to which Wikipedia's policies | enshrine commercial journalism outlets as the Arbiters of | Notability. | ghaff wrote: | >it's really odd the degree to which Wikipedia's policies | enshrine commercial journalism outlets as the Arbiters of | Notability. | | It is somewhat of an irony that notability probably is | bolstered more by fairly small run periodicals and books | than it is by things like fan websites. | _aavaa_ wrote: | Except they do care how popular the musician is. It's | just that instead of setting the threshold themselves | they choose to pass the buck and defer to journalists and | other groups. | adamrezich wrote: | exactly. this also leads to e.g. "Controversy" sections | of articles with sentences that make uncharitable | statements about people or groups, sometimes outstripping | the rest of the article in terms of length, and ending | with [11][12][13][14][17][24][27] so you know it's a | super accurate true statement instead of politically- | and/or ideologically-slanted analysis from multiple | sources (potentially all referencing a single source | themselves) that "just so happen" to be completely | identical. it doesn't matter that if it was something | that happened years ago that's wholly irrelevant now and | everyone's long forgotten about it--if a Sufficient | Quantity of Journalists _said_ that the thing was notably | controversial _at the time_ , well, it's notably | controversial forever! | | it seems like I encounter more and more of this exact | thing all over Wikipedia as time marches on. | _aavaa_ wrote: | Yes, I am very familiar with that phenomenon. | cinntaile wrote: | I was about to post this. | YeGoblynQueenne wrote: | The author is calling everyone who doesn't agree with him about | Faulconer's notability a "troll" (and more times than one in the | article). | | >> In the spirit of Wikipedia procedures and reliable source | documents, I want to add a few endnotes to this article. | | >> TROLLS (Par. 3): Here's my conversation with Faulconer on the | use of this word: | | >> Ted: People may question the suitability of the word trolls | here--some of these trolls are Wikipedia editors >> Bruce: When | they act in this way, they behave like trolls. So it's a fair | word. >> Ted: Yes, that's my considered judgment too. | | That's not a "considered judgement". That's just a flame. Very | disappointing. | hitekker wrote: | It's a fun, relevant metaphor. Some folks live under a bridge | and have nothing to do but to harass travelers. Trolls don't | own the bridge and they certainly shouldn't be demanding tolls | and taxes. But their position has stunted their minds and | twisted their hearts. | | They've spent too much time wallowing in the unreal realm of | the internet; they fear the light of day. If people were to | shine a light on them, they'd die of embarrassment. | mixmastamyk wrote: | Reminds me of a few months back when I tried to link Amy | Winehouse's "Mr. Magic" to the great original Grover Washington | piece of the same name. Same name, same music, some Wikipedia | support in other places, though not extensive. Both on Youtube, | takes seconds to confirm. | | Some pedanto reverts it every time I tried. Says "it's not in the | booklet" (of the CD). Believe the thinking is that reality is not | good enough, it must be confirmed by an authority. A disturbing | enough idea in itself. | BrainVirus wrote: | Wikipedia is a cautionary tale of what will inevitably happen if | you try to hypercentralize information at the Internet scale. | It's broken on every conceivable level, and yet people stubbornly | cling to the myth that was formed around it circa 2005. | | Instead of being surprised at things over and over again, I think | it's time to adjust our collective expectations to match the | reality. | themodelplumber wrote: | All models are broken, some are useful... Wikipedia works | really, really well at specific points of leverage. It can | change over time but the most likely-successful change will | still center on building from leverage points outward. | mhh__ wrote: | > It's broken on every conceivable level | | And yet it's still really good. | | People like Larry Sanger prattle on about how awful wikipedia | is (and make multiple websites for collecting mistakes, which | mostly seem to be blank), rarely with any concrete evidence. In | fact Sanger in particular refuses to browse wikipedia at all - | except that he _does_ but through a proxy, because giving | wikipedia.org traffic is "icky". I pointed out that this is | childish behaviour and he blocked me, go figure. | CharlesW wrote: | > _Wikipedia is a cautionary tale of what will inevitably | happen if you try to hypercentralize information at the | Internet scale._ | | "Decentralized" <> "unmoderated", "without content standards", | or "without editors". Is there a _more_ decentralized knowledge | resource of general significance? Hosting happens to be | centralized, only because nobody else cares enough to rehost it | themselves (which the license allows you to do). | stevenjgarner wrote: | Wikipedia includes entries based on notability, but they have | their own idea on notability. A friend of mine is a famous voice | actor who has won not one but two CLIO awards. Wikipedia deleted | the page I created for him on the basis that he was not notable. | Another page I created was for the person who introduced deaf | sign language to New Zealand. Deleted as she was not notable. | | There are more than 19,000 entries for CLIO awards [0] from 62 | countries yet only 18 Clio Awards juries comprised of industry | leaders from across the globe awarded 13 Grand Clios in 2020/2021 | [1]. The Global Advertising Agencies Market Size in 2022 was | worth approx. $332.1 billion [2]. | | By comparison the Academy Awards give out Oscars in 24 categories | [3] to nominees selected from only 9,921 members [4]. The Motion | Picture Association released a new report on the international | box office and home entertainment market showing that the | industry reached $101 billion USD in 2019 [5]. | | Oscars are considered notable. CLIOs are not. It would appear | that making art is notable (except in the sad case of Bruce | Faulconer), while impacting an entire industry or contributing to | marketing or education in a highly visibly recognized manner is | not. | | [0] https://clios.com/ | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clio_Awards | | [2] https://www.ibisworld.com/global/market-size/global- | advertis... | | [3] https://www.britannica.com/art/Academy-Award | | [4] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Motion_Picture_Arts... | | [5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rosaescandon/2020/03/12/the- | fil... | derefr wrote: | Most people would expect there to be a table on the "Clio | Awards" Wikipedia page that lists award winners. I don't think | anyone would object if such a table was added to the page; just | nobody has done it yet. | | But there is a difference between having someone's name listed | in a table on a page in Wikipedia, and that person needing an | entire Wikipedia article about them. | | If there's only one notable fact about someone, then that fact | is data, and is best recorded together with other data of the | same shape, to put it in the context of its meaning. | | It's only when there are many distinct notable facts about | someone, all of different shapes, where the best way to connect | all those facts together is in carefully-formatted prose, that | the right way to record that data becomes "a distinct Wikipedia | page for that topic." | stevenjgarner wrote: | I like it. What can make a name on that list notable above | other names is the plethora of other awards they may have | also made - in advertising it would not just be ClIO, but | IBA, ADDY, Hatch, New York International, Sunny, Silver | Microphone, Mobius, RAC, London International, ANDY, EFFIE, | The One Show, not to mention regional awards. A | multidimensional matrix of such award winners would indicate | true notability. Other factors might also include the | notability of the campaign they created - e.g. the famous | 1984 Apple Chiat Day commercial [0] - or the top advertising | agency revenues. | | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I | kupopuffs wrote: | Sounds like The Clio Awards need to get the word out | stevenjgarner wrote: | Talk to anybody in advertising, marketing, radio and | television ... believe me they know what a CLIO is (and get | paid accordingly). There are so many industry specialties | now, that to be a dominant player in one may render you | virtually unknown in all others. | glasshug wrote: | Wikipedia's notability guideline does not pass judgement on the | importance of Oscars or "CLIOs," both of which are notable and | have their own pages. | | Wikipedia's guideline for the notability of voice actors is:[1] | | > 1. Has had significant roles in multiple notable films, | television shows, stage performances, or other productions; or | | > 2. Has made unique, prolific or innovative contributions to a | field of entertainment. | | This can be difficult to define. I'd suggest you instead follow | the guideline of notability for people generally, which is:[2] | | > A person is presumed to be notable if they have received | significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are | independent of the subject. | | I'm always sorry to hear about someone that has gotten | frustrated editing Wikipedia. Even though I'd discourage it as | a conflict of interest, editors have successfully created | articles for friends by simply citing reliable secondary | sources that cover them. I'd suggest you give it another try if | such sources exist and reach out in the Teahouse[3] if you need | help. | | [1] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#... | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people) | | [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse | stevenjgarner wrote: | That's the problem right there. Advertising is not even | included. The number one employer of voice actors | (advertisements) and they're not even included in Wikipedia's | guideline for the notability of voice actors. I suggest a | major revision in that Wikipedia guideline. | | > significant roles in multiple notable films, television | shows, stage performances, or other productions | | - this shows the Wikipedia bias against commercial enterprise | and success. | | The voice actor who was not "notable" only won over 700 | awards, including most of the BIG awards - from Clio, IBA, | ADDY, Hatch, New York International, Sunny, Silver | Microphone, Mobius, RAC, London International, ANDY, EFFIE, | The One Show, and hundreds of regional awards. | derefr wrote: | Wikipedia serves the public, and its notability heuristic | is demand-driven. It doesn't matter how famous someone is | within their own domain, if a member of the public outside | of that domain would never have reason to look that person | up, and therefore would get no marginal value out of | Wikipedia having that page. | | Personally, I don't know the name of a single advertising | voice actor. Nor would anyone even three steps removed | within my social circle. I suspect nobody would, save for | people _in_ the advertising industry. Ads don 't have | credits rolls; there's no distinctive visual to recognize | voice-actors by, like there is for pitch-men; and voice | actors even often sell themselves on their ability to | imitate popular ad voices, so "that voice" isn't | necessarily just one person. The dynamics of the ad audio | industry are stacked against building public recognition. | | This is the perfect use-case for a _domain-specific_ wiki | about advertisements (which tbh would be a really good idea | for several reasons; there isn 't much centralized effort | currently to do presevation/cataloguing/history on ad | media.) | stevenjgarner wrote: | I disagree. Information today is a unified field across | all domains - wikipedia has done better than most at | addressing that - you may search for something thinking | of it in one domain only to find it relevant in another | domain. A domain-specific wiki would not deliver that. | The first thought that comes to mind is millions of | (public) entrepreneurs who in search of a business / | domain / trademark name invariably include in their | search a peek on Wikipedia. Such searches cross-fertilize | so much creativity. | | And I also disagree. I'll bet you know James Earl Jones | not just as Darth Vader but also because of his instantly | recognized voice. In the past 30 days, commercials | featuring James Earl Jones have had 28,635 airings. [0] | | > The dynamics of the ad audio industry are stacked | against building public recognition | | While that is true, the opposite is equally true. | Advertisers pay top dollar for instantly recognized | voices, which are countless in number. | | [0] https://www.ispot.tv/topic/actor-actress/kes/james- | earl-jone... | derefr wrote: | > While that is true, the opposite is equally true. | Advertisers pay top dollar for instantly recognized | voices, which are countless in number. | | People recognize the voice, but they don't put a name to | it. And that's the thing about Wikipedia, or the Internet | in general: you need a textual handle onto something to | be able to find it. Even if I recognize a voice actor, I | can't search them "by their voice"; I have to figure out | how to name something they appeared in, and then search | for that. | | And advertisements don't have (viewer-visible) names | either! So how do I even search for the ad, other than by | struggling to describe what happened in it? (This is much | of why commercials are "lost media": there's no explicit | name to use as a Schelling point to gather people onto | the same forum post looking for it.) | _gabe_ wrote: | > Wikipedia serves the public, and its notability | heuristic is demand-driven. | | This sentence seems to be incompatible with itself. | | > the public | | This constitutes _all_ public groups, including the | advertising industry. | | > its notability heuristic is demand-driven | | Driven by _who_? The editors at Wikipedia? Depending on | which domain they reside in, they may have a very skewed | perception of what the demand in a particular area is. | Donald Knuth is certainly a notable person in computing, | but if I ask any of my non-CS friends (and even several | CS friends) whether they would consider him notable, most | would respond that they don 't even know the man. | | So it's hard for me to buy this argument since there are | certain domains with their own experts and notable | figures that are relatively, if not completely, unknown | in tangential domains. | derefr wrote: | > This constitutes all public groups, including the | advertising industry. | | You're making a useless semiotic distinction. The default | English-language connotation of the words "the public" is | to refer to "lay-people; civilians; people with a non- | vocational interest in a subject." As in, Wikipedia is | not an _academic_ publication, nor is it an _industrial_ | publication, nor is it an _esoteric_ publication. When | such interests are incompatible with the interests of | people outside of those groups, Wikipedia chooses the | interests of the people outside of the niche ( "the | public") over the interests of the people in the niche. | Niches can go make their own websites. Wikipedia is for | the average human being -- one who isn't thinking "in" | the context of a domain, but rather in the context of | "common knowledge." One who can't just take a step back | and search for "[domain] wiki" and then use that, because | they wouldn't know what to plug in for the [domain] part. | | See also: the job of a dictionary in defining words, vs. | the job of an academic or industrial or esoteric text in | defining jargon terms. | | > Driven by who? The editors at Wikipedia? | | Like I said -- demand. As in, analytics data of what | users are trying to look up -- Google Analytics traffic | for "[topic] wikipedia"; things typed into Wikipedia's | own search box; etc. The aggregate measure of humanity's | expectation of a particular Wikipedia article existing; | and the generalization of that into an expectation on | whether Wikipedia will cover particular classes of | topics. | solardev wrote: | The problem isn't with the editors, but admins who spuriously | make these judgment calls. It takes hours to create a new | article and seconds to delete it. Not going to spend hours | more in the silly appeals process. | | The bar on deletion should be as high or higher than the bar | on creation (spam aside, of course) or you're just going to | keep losing editors. Nobody has time to play these stupid | games with the juvenile admins. | glasshug wrote: | > The problem isn't with the editors, but admins who | spuriously make these judgment calls. | | Deletion decisions are made by editors, not admins. See, | for example, the decision referenced by the author: https:/ | /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... | | > It takes hours to create a new article and seconds to | delete it. | | I think the "seconds to delete it" process you're | describing is PROD[1], which is for "non-controversial" | deletions and there's no appeals process--it can be added | back with no justification at any time if any editor | disagrees with the deletion. The full deletion process that | takes time to appeal is "Articles for Deletion,"[2] through | which articles are deleted only through 7 days of | consensus-building. This is the process "Bruce Faulconer" | went through. | | I know it's confusing, and often really frustrating. I'd | encourage you to try contesting your PROD deletion if | you're willing to give it another try, because it really | will bring the article back instantly. It can be difficult | for new editors, but users of this forum are a bit better | than the average person at source editing. | | [1] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Proposed_deletion | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_de | letio... | solardev wrote: | Wikipedia's notability requirements are enforced very | haphazardly. Broadly, editors and admins can be split into two | camps: inclusionists who want to add everything and | exclusionists who want to delete everything. The life of your | new article entirely depends on who happens to stumble upon it. | | I've had success appealing notability deletions in the past, | but it was a pain in the ass, especially after I just spent | hours researching, sourcing, writing, referencing, and proofing | the article. I never made a new article again after that. | | Sadly, some of the admins there are power tripping idiots who | will also use random loopholes to forbid edits that don't | reflect their own ideologies, often in direct contrast to | Wikipedia's own guidelines. | | Like any bureaucracy, it has become a cabal of aristocrats who | are in it for the power and control. Regular lowly editors | generally don't have much recourse. It made me gave up on | editing Wikipedia. Became an editor in 2004 and the climate has | changed dramatically since then, from "newbies welcome, please | edit" to "this is my private library, don't touch anything!" | ghaff wrote: | >inclusionists who want to add everything and exclusionists | who want to delete everything | | That's probably a bit B&W but a lot of people tend towards | one side or the other. Part of it too also relates to the | availability of secondary sources which are _far_ more | available for some domains than others. Even a fairly minor | politician or entertainer has probably had quite a bit | written about them by third parties. A senior executive even | at a large global company? Very possibly not--especially if | they pre-dated the internet. | justincormack wrote: | Often its related to people not finding sources when they | start articles, if you do detailed research first rather | than posting a stub survival rates are higher. However | thats often not how articles come about. | themodelplumber wrote: | Not sure if this has changed, but I wish there was a way to kind | of dull the downside-edge of this kind of outcome. For example | maybe there's another place the person's info can go that's not | so obviously a trash can, and ideally even still a useful or | interesting place. | | It ought to be possible, IMO. And I'll add that noteworthiness is | a real cringe of a model in a lot of ways. | | Personally I saw the downsides of this first hand back in the | early 2000s, when I created a page for a software developer. It | didn't seem right to put their information, much of which was | interesting and relevant, but which wasn't related to the | software, on the software's page. | | So anyway, their page was deleted with the note that his info | should probably just go on that one app's page. A really | shallow/easy suggestion especially given that it had already been | considered and didn't make sense in various ways. | | And then I realized: This whole thing has created extra pain for | someone, who for years had a Wikipedia page, and who now has had | it deleted. None of which was their choice, but all of which | started with intentions to inform and build on a useful corpus of | knowledge. | | So, is that pain-side really, really necessary? I think such a | process can be done better. | ilikehurdles wrote: | Wikipedia commingles the "facts" with the organization of those | facts. What Wikipedia really is, is that organizational | structure. Whether a developer has their own page, or is | mentioned on the page of a product they created, is irrelevant | in that both views acknowledge the same facts: the developer | exists and the product exists and these things are related in | that the developer created it. | | It would be interesting if the database of facts driving | Wikipedia were available to all, and Wikipedia is recognized as | providing one of potentially many ways to organize/publish that | database for human reading. In other words, if I want to add | information about a composer and her composition to the | database I can do so, and if Wikipedia chooses only to publish | the composition but not the composer, that is entirely their | decision. | lucideer wrote: | Plenty of comments on here suggesting WP relaxing/removing | notability requirements: the problem is deeper. | | WP could retain the exact notability requirements they currently | have, as written, and still vastly improve the situation from the | current mess. As it stands: | | - mentions of any thing or person without a pre-existing article | (by extension meeting notability requirements) are quickly | deleted by fans of the frequently referenced "Write the Article | First" essay[0]. While this essay is clearly labelled as an | opinion piece, not policy, that opinion is staunchly defended by | people with more time on their hands than you do. | | - Any effort to follow the essay's advice and actually create a | new article is quickly curbed: despite the notability | requirements policies containing detailed sections on the | benefits of "stubs" as prompts to grow useful article content, | newly minted articles are summarily deleted if they are not | perfect on first draft (and extremely comprehensively | referenced). | | When I first started contributing to Wikipedia almost 2 decades | ago, these articles and similar debates between cohorts of | "deletionists", etc. certainly existed, but what looks to have | happened over the years is that the most progressive of those | cohorts left, probably tired of constantly grappling with the | hostilities of those with seemingly nothing better to do than to | pour all of their hours into making Wikipedia their staunchly | defended castle. | | Becoming a new contributor to Wikipedia today involves a barrier | to entry only zealots will bother to spend time overcoming. | | [0] | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Write_the_article_... | Victerius wrote: | > Becoming a new contributor to Wikipedia today involves a | barrier to entry only zealots will bother to spend time | overcoming. | | The current editors and admins will die someday. Who will | replace them? If only the worst kind of people bother making | the effort to become the next editors and admins, then | Wikipedia will decline in quality and eventually die and be | replaced by other sources, like fandom. | bpeebles wrote: | I'd say its hard to start as a new Wikipedia editor if you only | goal is to make article X or make huge changes to article Y | that is somewhat controversial. On the other hand, if you start | in Wikipedia by doing simple edits in non-controversial | subjects (which does improve Wikipedia, and thus, the Internet | given how many search engines just scrape Wikipedia for search | results), start making making some new articles in notable | things that are also not controversial, then you can start | understanding how to get controversial (but correct) things | added and changed. Yes, that takes longer and is more work, but | at the same time, similar to open source software, you have to | spend time learning how to code and how to make valuable and | correct PRs to make major overhauls to heavily used software. | glasshug wrote: | Please read the discussion that deleted this article: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... | | It's a hard problem. Volunteer editors are spread thinly over | millions of articles, some of which (like "Bruce Faulconer") are | about living people that are really important to get right.[1] | The project has settled on the guideline of _notability_, meaning | that articles are kept only if they have significant coverage in | reliable sources.[2] Proving a negative is not really possible, | but it works okay most of the time. | | It's worth thinking about alternate policies you could set up.[3] | You could decide deletion based on whether a figure were "known | and beloved all over the world," as the author suggests, which is | difficult to define. You could could keep everything,[4] which | some alternate Wikis have tried. You get unmaintained pages and | probably libel. | | Gioia criticizes the barrier to contribution, which is also a | difficult balance to reach. Some processes are just inherently | complex and involve reaching consensus among hundreds of people. | Others could be simplified, but every hour spent discussing and | implementing improvements is an hour taken from improving the | content. | | The policies are under constant discussion and change,[5] and no | one thinks we've reached the perfect balance between these | constraints. See, for example, this month's headline case at the | Arbitration Committee around deletion.[6] | | [1] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_livin... | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability | | [3] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_i... | | [4] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inclusionism | | [5] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy... | | [6] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests... | jsmith45 wrote: | Further the guidelines on composers that are likely to apply to | him are listed below. It is not at all clear that he meets the | bar here. | | From the info I have, the only criteria he may meet is #1 for | in the first group, and it is not actually clear that | "soundtrack for DBZ" is a notable composition. for a TV show | soundtrack to qualify as notable, it would need to be something | often written about. For example, if a show is discussed for | its music almost as often as for its plot, then sure the | soundtrack is probably notable. I don't think that actually | applies here. | | And even if so, if he is only really known for one work (which | pretty much is the case), that would generally be merged with | the article for that work. So he could be mentioned in the | "Sound Track of DBZ" article if one existed, or the | "soundtrack" section of the main DBZ article. | | ------ | | Composers, songwriters, librettists or lyricists, may be | notable if they meet at least one of the following criteria: | | 1. Has credit for writing or co-writing either lyrics or music | for a notable composition. 2. Has written musical theatre of | some sort (includes musicals, operas, etc.) that was performed | in a notable theatre that had a reasonable run, as such things | are judged in their particular situation, context, and time. 3. | Has had a work used as the basis for a later composition by a | songwriter, composer or lyricist who meets the above criteria. | 4. Has written a composition that has won (or in some cases | been given a second or other place) in a major music | competition not established expressly for newcomers. 5. Has | been listed as a major influence or teacher of a composer, | songwriter or lyricist that meets the above criteria. 6. | Appears at reasonable length in standard reference books on | their genre of music. | | Where possible, composers or lyricists with insufficient | verifiable material to warrant a reasonably detailed article | should be merged into the article about their work. When a | composer or lyricist is known for multiple works, such a merger | may not be possible. | | --- | | Composers and performers outside mass media traditions may be | notable if they meet at least one of the following criteria: | | 1. Is frequently covered in publications devoted to a notable | music sub-culture. | | 2. Has composed a number of notable melodies, tunes or | standards used in a notable music genre. | | 3. Is cited in reliable sources as being influential in style, | technique, repertory or teaching for a particular music genre. | | 4. Is cited by reliable sources as having established a | tradition or school in a particular music genre. | | 5. Has been listed as a significant musical influence on | musicians or composers who meet the above criteria. | justincormack wrote: | It was also restored since then, with a note it still needs | improving https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Faulconer | Robotbeat wrote: | It seems to me that erroring on the side of not deleting is | probably a better policy. | tshaddox wrote: | And it seems to be that the opposite is probably a better | policy. This is precisely the debate discussed in the link in | the previous comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletioni | sm_and_inclusionism_i... | chalst wrote: | That is erring on the side of hosting spam, urban legends and | pseudoscience. The opinion was made in the AfD that no | quality sources for the article: without them, no worthwhile | article can be written. | ranger207 wrote: | Normally I'd agree, but I think the opposite for living | people in particular | barnabee wrote: | > It's worth thinking about alternate policies you could set up | | A reasonable alternative would be for the notability | requirement simply to be that the general public may run into | the topic/person (and presumably therefore be interested to | know more) OR may ask a question to which the article would | contain the answer. | | Anyone who's creative work is published or included in a movie | or whatever should automatically be included under such a rule. | | It would also be sensible for the default in the case of | dispute to be to keep the article unless the actual content | itself is completely unverifiable, as long as there is some | half way plausible argument for doing so. | | There should be no sense of achievement for or gratitude | towards anyone removing facts from an encyclopaedia. | | Any editor who makes removing articles on notability grounds | their raison d'etre demonstrates only arrogance and smugness. | leereeves wrote: | It seems the policies for notable composers [1] fail to | recognize the work of TV composers. | | Judging by this case, composing the music for a TV show watched | for years by millions of people doesn't count, but composing | something performed in a theatre and watched by far fewer | people is officially notable: | | > Has written musical theatre of some sort (includes musicals, | operas, etc.) that was performed in a notable theatre that had | a reasonable run, as such things are judged in their particular | situation, context, and time. | | 1: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(music)#C... | entwife wrote: | This observation is likely a good basis for an improvement to | the Wikipedia policies on Notability in music. | BrainVirus wrote: | _> Volunteer editors are spread thinly over millions of | articles_ | | I would like to point out that this is, effectively, a very | clever way of saying that Wikipedia is controlled by a tiny | group of people whose goals for Wikipedia do not match the | expectations of the general public. | glasshug wrote: | There's definitely a systemic bias on Wikipedia towards its | generally more-white, more-male, younger, English-speaking | editors: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Systemic_bias | | I'm not sure what the policy solution is. Some suggestions | are given on the linked page, but it's a continuing issue. | thrdbndndn wrote: | I probably will side with Wikipedia this time. | | As mentioned in the discussion page [1], there doesn't seem to | have any coverage from mass media about him, the only opponent in | the discussion lists a bunch of sources/references that are | either database-type websites, attendance lists, or product | credit. These unfortunately don't really count, any professionals | would have such things to a degree. | | Also it looks like he self-edited the page [2]. This isn't | strictly prohibited AFAIK, but it will raise self-promotion [3] | red flag and obviously there were hardly any references in his | editing. | | [1] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... | | [2] | https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bruce_Faulconer&d... | | [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest | fennecfoxen wrote: | You know what else isn't happy-times? When Wikipedia editors | are trying to maintain things one way or another, and someone | disagrees with what they've done, so they go off and write an | article about how these _terrible trolls_ have so _heinously_ | decided to efface _such a luminary of accomplishment_ , et | cetera. | | Look! I'm going to promote a rather dull controversy to an | online magazine and the front page of Hacker News! I'm 100% | confident that this process will effect justice and result in | only 100% positive and desirable contributions to Wikipedia! | _cough_ | barnabee wrote: | The idea of an encyclopaedia that only includes topics with | significant mass media coverage is both incredibly crass and | extremely depressing. | | If that is the primary standard for inclusion (or "notability") | it is a huge shame and a wasted opportunity. | thrdbndndn wrote: | > an encyclopaedia that .. | | Wikipedia has the loosest standard of inclusion among any | encyclopedia ever existed, not sure why that's depressing. | barnabee wrote: | Because it is a much tighter "standard" than it needs to be | given the constraints. | | It is depressing to think of all the effort that people put | into writing articles that no one can ever benefit from, | knowing there's no good reason for their work to be wasted | in this way. | goldenchrome wrote: | JanneVee wrote: | It is things like this that has reduced the usefulness of | wikipedia for me personally. I wasn't aware of the whole | "notability deletionists" before I tried to look up the Rockstar | programming language when discussing esoteric programming | languages a while back. I knew that there was a entry there it | was a nice short introduction to it but it was deleted by these | people. In one way it is piece of "programmer culture" that was | removed but at the other hand it is an esoteric programming | language so it might not be "notable" almost by definition. | | This article highlights the slippery slope of it. It is one thing | to remove the esoteric language that nobody is seriously using | but has a little cultural significance except for a small number | of programmer nerds like myself. This composer is actually | notable in comparison. Who gets to decide notability? What is | next? Are we going to be removing lore from small ethnic groups | because there isn't some academic reference to it and someone | dutifully transcribed oral tradition and translated a language | which only a few speak... No not notable... | shp0ngle wrote: | As a wikipedia contributor, I disagree. | | You don't automatically deserve Wikipedia article because you | exist, or even because you did a good job your whole life. Even | if you have tons of credits on IMDV. You don't "deserve" | wikipedia article. It's not a collection of everything that | exists ever. | | The criteria for notability on wikipedia are actually quite clear | and documented. | | It's not a badge for a job well done... | | And if you disagree with that - fine, it's creative commons, you | can easily get all the articles with all their histories | (wikipedia helpfully dumps all that periodically every day as | giant XML), and the software is open source; you can fork it and | create article on every living human being that ever existed. | onli wrote: | Thanks for this comment. It is the essence of why for me the | Wikipedia project can't die soon enough. | | The criteria for notability on wikipedia are not clear and | documented. They are a joke, with a camp of zealots deleting | everything they can delete - maybe they see it as a hobby, | maybe they need it to feel powerful. The criteria do not matter | as long as such people are allowed to wield power. And the | english Wikipedia is actually the good one in this category, | the german is already completely broken because of this | clientele. | | You are right, it could be forked, but in practice it's | unlikely humanity has the capacity to run two such projects. | Thus Wikipedia - if it does not course correct - will sink | slowly into irrelevance, be flanked with better wikis for | specific topics (sadly often proprietary platforms/commercial | projects) and then, hopefully, what you describe will really | happen and a new Wikipedia will be forked, learning from the | mistakes that are completely obvious to everyone outside of | that current in-group of contributors. | shp0ngle wrote: | Note, I don't wield any power on Wikipedia, I am a small time | contributor that nominate something for deletion, about 3 | times per year. | | The rules are here? | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability | | The humanity actually cannot meaningfully have an article | about every person in human history, and have some standard | for quality. There do need to be notability guidelines. | | But. People are complaining about this stuff for decades now, | and wikipedia is not going anywhere. So that's good. | | I do hate inscrutable wikipedia bureaucracy too though. It's | almost impossible to navigate the maze of projects and rules | and committees. But that's a different issue. | armchairhacker wrote: | Honestly even if he isn't famous why can't Wikipedia keep his | entry? Why does Wikipedia even have "notable" requirements | anyways? | | There's not a storage issue. Wikipedia can literally have | billions of articles and still be easy to maintain. | | There's not really a quality issue. Wikipedia is known for not | being 100% reliable. But moreover, they have tons of ways to | denote "this article needs citations" and "this isn't a reliable | source". If Wikipedia is concerned about quality, they can have | "verified" and "contributed" articles, just like how distros have | "stable" and "user-contributed / experimental". | | Spammers and useless content? This _is_ an issue. But this guy is | clearly not spam, the proof being any of his official works. I do | agree that Wikipedia authors should remove "spammy" entries and | entries on complete nobodies and random things, but you shouldn't | need to be in an Oxford journal to not be considered a "nobody". | | Even things which are famous in small towns and 1000-member | groups should be on Wikipedia IMO, because most of the stuff is | already on there is about as relevant to me or anyone else (which | is to say, pretty irrelevant). If you want relevant content, | that's what the search tools and indexing are for. | | Wikipedia is supposed to be "the grand encyclopedia" where you | can find info on basically anything. There are already tons of | Wikipedia articles on obscure people, places, and things. Way | more obscure than this composer even if he isn't truly well- | known. Why does "relevance" even matter? | glasshug wrote: | Readers interested in these arguments can find more at | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inclusionism and | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deletionism. | winternett wrote: | I can't get on there myself with over 20 years of making and | publishing music and being on radio etc... And for that same | reason can't get verified on Twitter and many other sites I | promote my music work on. | | First of all, Wikipedia has banned all T-Mobile IPs from being | able to even log in to my account... 10 years ago when I tried | to post my biography there, they rejected it for lack of | notability... Twitter also requires an entry to be published on | Wikipedia for artists, now I could probably wait forever until | someone still never writes one about me, or I could choose to | pay a renowned publication to run a fluff piece on me like many | other musicians do. | | I am so tired of the manufactured gatekeeping nonsense that is | required of me just to make music and be heard, no wonder why | so many quit the business... ugh. | bityard wrote: | Wikipedia isn't (or isn't intended to be) a platform for | promotion. | winternett wrote: | That's not what I wrote. I said a Wikipedia entry is | required for Twitter verification... Where we do promotion | (On Twitter). | Victerius wrote: | I'm surprised more ambitious people don't have "having an | entry on Wikipedia" as a life goal. | winternett wrote: | It's def. not any sort of life goal. More like getting a | driver's license, so that you can drive. Once you pass | the test, the driver's test is no longer a concern | (unless you change countries perhaps). | nonameiguess wrote: | It's kind of amusing to think of this from the perspective | that the requirement for a person to be eligible for a page | on Wikifeet is they need to have a bio on IMDB, and that is | really easy to get. A whole lot of people I know from primary | school are there for appearances in student films. I _could_ | be on there since I was on a television game show in 1992, | but no one has bothered to create an entry for it. | | If you're not already there, perhaps you can try to get | yourself an entry in allmusic.com, which presumably would | warrant a Wikipedia entry. You're gonna need to get someone | else to write the article for you, though. You're not | supposed to create a Wikipedia page for yourself no matter | who you are, which is stated here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w | iki/Help:Your_first_article#Things.... | WalterBright wrote: | I just created my own site - https://walterbright.com/ - | where I decide what goes on it and what doesn't. | zasdffaa wrote: | From your profile "A web design, promotions, branding, and PR | group based in Washington DC http://www.winternett.com" | | I don't want crap on wikipedia, thanks. | winternett wrote: | >I don't want crap on wikipedia, thanks. | | Wow, that's not the company I was referring to... | | The company I was referring to is RUFFANDTUFFRECORDINGS.COM | derefr wrote: | > Why does Wikipedia even have "notable" requirements anyways? | | Think of it like code in an active open-source project. Someone | needs to _maintain_ the article: update it when house style | changes, evaluate any new contributions to it as being valid or | not, etc. Like code experiencing code-rot, a Wikipedia article | rots if editors don 't give it active attention. | | This has exactly the implications you'd expect: it means that | articles about things that don't change, are easier to keep | around than are articles about things that _might_ change; | which are in turn easier to keep around than are articles about | things that _definitely will_ change. | | Living people -- where the article is basically living | biography for them -- are in that last category. | | The "notability" requirement can be translated into editor-ese | as a combination of 1. "how many people could we find who could | contribute to this page", and 2. "how much demand is there for | _Wikipedia_ -- rather than some other website -- to do the work | of keeping this. " | | Re: the first point about contribution, this is why Wikipedia | doesn't let people be their own primary source -- it's because, | when that primary-source person eventually stops maintaining | the page, who will then be able to take over the maintenance? | If that's "nobody", then to prevent that, the page shouldn't be | allowed in the first place. | | Re: the second point about demand -- the Pokemon Pikachu has | its own Wikipedia page, because people expect _Wikipedia | specifically_ to have an article about Pikachu. Other Pokemon | do not -- because there 's already Bulbapedia around to satisfy | the demand for an encyclopedia with articles about Pokemon, and | the pages from it are easily found in any search engine. If a | different set of editors are willing to take on the maintenance | burden for those articles in their own domain -- and are doing | a decent job of it -- then why should Wikipedia's editors | duplicate that effort? | CamperBob2 wrote: | _Think of it like code in an active open-source project. | Someone needs to maintain the article_ | | No, they don't, no more than Google Maps needs to "maintain" | older versions of their imagery for access through Google | Maps Timeline. | | Curation should be directed towards informing the user and | allowing them to make their own judgements regarding the | content, not towards excluding content based on someone's | completely-arbitrary opinion of "notability." | | No matter how much hand-waving Wikipedia does on the subject, | that's ultimately what notability comes down to: someone | else's opinion. | DuskStar wrote: | > Re: the second point about demand -- the Pokemon Pikachu | has its own Wikipedia page, because people expect Wikipedia | specifically to have an article about Pikachu. Other Pokemon | do not -- because there's already Bulbapedia around to | satisfy the demand for an encyclopedia with articles about | Pokemon, and the pages from it are easily found in any search | engine. If a different set of editors are willing to take on | the maintenance burden for those articles in their own domain | -- and are doing a decent job of it -- then why should | Wikipedia's editors duplicate that effort? | | You've got the chronology here backwards IIRC - Bulbapedia | exists because Wikipedia got rid of "non-notable" Pokemon. | sanqui wrote: | Bulbapedia was launched in February 2005[1], while | Wikipedia reached the consensus that "not all Pokemon are | notable" in mid-2007[2]. | | [1] https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page | | [2] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pok%C3%A9mon_test | lozenge wrote: | Maybe the people who wanted to write about Pokemon were | tired of being debated about what pages, or paragraphs, | of their output were "notable"? | calvinmorrison wrote: | Which brings us to, should wikipedia have more domain | specific wikis? Why does everyone end up on fandom or | some other random wiki site when wikipedia is already ad | free, hosted worldwide and ain't going anywhere. | | Wikipedia doesn't _have_ to be just a encyclopedic | overview of topics, it should have dive ins as deep as | you want if there are people willing to write it. | derefr wrote: | A wiki "is" its maintainers. Separate editors -- separate | wiki. Wikipedia stops where the interest of Wikipedia's | editors in maintaining pages stops; which is usually | where the interest of _another, distinct_ group of | editors in maintaining those pages _starts_. | | That other set of editors could all just be Wikipedia | editors, but then they'd have to play by Wikipedia's | rules. They'd rather play by their own set of rules, and | more importantly, have the ability to _define_ their own | rules. Autonomy. Sovereignty. | | Now, in theory, there _could_ be some "hierarchy of | wikis" all maintained within one system, where different | namespaces are maintained by different groups of editors | (similar to e.g. Reddit with subreddit moderators) -- | but, because the goal would remain the creation of a | single _cohesively-presented_ encyclopedia, this would | result in terrible inter-group conflicts about things | that don 't fall crisply into the magisterial domain of | one group of editors or the other -- e.g. rules for when | a wiki page in one namespace, should link a topic of a | wiki page in another namespace, and how that citation | should be done. | | (Imagine if editors in namespace A believed that a page | in namespace B _really should_ exist, and so kept linking | to it, despite the editors of namespace B disagreeing; | and the system hosting all of these constantly bubbling | up the non-existent page to the attention of the editors | in namespace B because it received new external links.) | | The solution to this is decentralization. No hierarchy, | no shared system, just reusable open-source software and | federation through hypertext linkage entirely controlled | by the origin. Which is exactly what you get when each | wiki is its own website. | kps wrote: | > _Why does everyone end up on fandom_ | | Fandom dot com is a commercial venture started by Jimmy | Wales. Inferences are left as an exercise for the reader. | SllX wrote: | When it was Wikia, it was alright. It has evolved into | something atrocious that I actively avoid. | yifanl wrote: | Write or maintain? Because anyone is willing to write | almost anything, see: Twitter. | joecot wrote: | > Re: the first point about contribution, this is why | Wikipedia doesn't let people be their own primary source -- | it's because, when that primary-source person eventually | stops maintaining the page, who will then be able to take | over the maintenance? | | It's also because people use having personal Wikipedia pages | as a credentials boost, and they write puff pieces about | themselves or their friends. If a person is notable, there | will be multiple editors on their article, and the hope of | the project is that multiple collaborators will reduce bias. | If someone is not notable enough that people besides | themselves and their friends would contribute to their page, | there is room for substantially biased puff pieces. Most | people take Wikipedia articles at face value, and don't delve | into any of the sources cited, so that is a huge problem. | | Wikipedia articles will always struggle with bias issues, but | for the reasons you mention, there is no point in spending | volunteer time verifying articles and removing bias when | they're for people who aren't notable. That's why they just | get removed. | logicalmonster wrote: | It feels like you described what the plausible deniability | is; or the ostensible excuse that could be used. | | But does that actually describe reality? | | Given how corrupt and petty Wikipedia's editors have become, | the more complete and realistic reason might be that having a | complex set of rules that allows some humans to pick and | choose who makes it on Wikipedia gives people who would | otherwise have little of it, some real world power. | | And if you think humans aren't above basing their life | activity over a petty bit of power, well, I've got some | Reddit moderators to show you. | derefr wrote: | I mean, I wasn't trying to define notability; the question | asked was "why does Wikipedia _have_ notability | requirements " -- i.e. what stops them from just getting | rid of the concept altogether, and keeping everything -- | and the answer to that is to look at the marginal OpEx of | keeping a page around. | winternett wrote: | The nature in which Wikipedia seeks to make access limited to | many and to dictate the relevance of subjects it covers kind | of diminishes it's credibility in my opinion. e.g. "Pokeymon" | has not done anything as an individual being, it's a | fictional being, but somehow it had an individual entry even | though many other beings with publications and published work | do not qualify somehow because of a constantly changing | measure of "notoriety". | | By this I'm saying sure, you can have a dictionary with | select words in it without problems... But when you label it | as an OFFICIAL INFORMATION RESOURCE, it becomes subject to a | higher level of scrutiny and objectivity that can't just hand | pick what words are in it, there has to be a solid democratic | aspect involved to managing the resource. | | Democracy seems to be failing in many ways right now on | public resources. | tshaddox wrote: | Regardless of all the accusations of incompetent, unfair, or | inconsistent enforcement of their own policies (which are | serious and deserve inspection and criticsm), I don't think | Wikipedia's stated policies around notability are unreasonable. | The policy that most directly addresses your comments is | "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information": | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no... | . They explicitly reject arguments of the form "we should be | able to have any page we want as long as storage costs aren't a | problem." | macspoofing wrote: | >Why does Wikipedia even have "notable" requirements anyways? | | To prevent me having a Wikipedia page. | techdragon wrote: | Pretty sure you have one | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_spoofing ;-) | leijurv wrote: | I think it has to do with verifiability. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:V Essentially everything | written has to be verifiable, and if a person doesn't have | enough reliable sources talking about them, it isn't really | possible to write a verifiable article. See | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:GNG and | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RS | [deleted] | stevenjgarner wrote: | There is a redirecting Wikipedia page for Bruce Faulconer [0] | | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball_Z | jtbayly wrote: | And there is a link from the Dragon Ball Z page where its music | is discussed to the Bruce Faulconer page (which existed for 15 | years, but no longer does), but that page then redirects back | to the Dragon Ball Z page. Seems pretty dumb. | chiph wrote: | From what I've seen, the key to keeping pages up on Wikipedia is | to have a lot of verifiable references & citations. If you do | this like you're writing a college paper, rogue editors have much | less power. Challenges to their reverts & deletions are also more | likely to succeed. | | A good example of this is the article for the unloved Honda | Ridgeline pickup. Jalopnik did an article about how the Wikipedia | page for it is astonishingly detailed and (exhaustively) | referenced. | | https://jalopnik.com/the-story-behind-the-honda-ridgelines-w... | lucideer wrote: | > _rogue editors [...] power_ | | The problem is that this takes SO MUCH time and energy. Most | give up. | | Taking time out of your day to voluntarily improve a free | resource is already energy intensive without also expending | that energy battling with zealots. | | Edit: to be clear, I'm not saying providing proper references | takes too much time, I'm saying that having to fight with | people to be permitted to keep content _while building | references_ takes much more energy again. | guender wrote: | worik wrote: | Pedantically: | | "In another bizarre case, an editor at Wikipedia told Philip | Roth, "one of the most awarded American authors of his | generation" (according to Wikipedia) that he was not a reliable | source on the subject of Philip Roth." | | Philip Roth is not an authoritative source on Philip Roth. I | would have thought that was obvious. | leijurv wrote: | Some mistake or miscommunication happened there, as Wikipedia | does have a policy that people can be cited for information | about themselves, the policy is called SELFSOURCE. See: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:SELFSOURCE | | Perhaps the issue was that Philip Roth was unable to | sufficiently demonstrate his identity? Of course, Wikipedia | can't take a random editor's word when they say "I am this | person and this is the truth", then anyone could say anything. | There has to be some citation, for example I've seen someone | cite a tweet for simple biographical information (e.g. "today | is my birthday"). | googlryas wrote: | Philip Roth was _the_ authoritative source on Philip Roth. In | fact, he wrote a whole book about him called _The Facts_. | defen wrote: | How does laundering the info through _The New Yorker_ make it | authoritative? Any putative fact checking for the article | itself would necessarily entail asking him "Hey Phil, that | article you just wrote for us about the inspiration for your | best-selling, PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novel - was that true | or were you just having a giggle?" ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-07-27 23:01 UTC)