[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)