Hot Diggety! Trey Darley was rumored to have written:
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> Okay, so there is now such a Wikipedia page but I have only put three
> names on it (off the top of my head) so it's rather skeletal. It was
> already deleted once by the lords of Wikipedia and is currently proposed
> for deletion due to (allegedly) being a "ludicrous and completely
> indiscriminate list."
>
> If you were credited in a film, know a sysadmin who was, or just think
> (like Tom and I do) that this page should exist then please take a few
> moments to add some content. Also, it wouldn't hurt to weigh in on the
> article's "talk" page.
>
> link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SysadminsInFilm
Hi Trey,
I haven't been involved with any serious Wikipedia editing for some
years now, but thought I'd give you how it looks 'from the other side'.
I'm not sure about your familiarity with Wikipedia (aka 'WP') policy so
I'll assume you're a novice editor -- all are welcome. First, a quick
summary of the WP hierarchy before I jump into the issues.
The 'lords of Wikipedia' as you put it are numerous. :-)
There's about 300,000 editors who's made more than 10 edits as well as
300,000 who regularly edits at least once a month. (They're probably
both a large? subset of each other.)
Then there's presently about 850 administrators who can keep the editors
in check. Mainly, they help in refereeing disputes and ensure things
flows according to Wikipedia policies and best practices to best of ability.
Who keeps the administrators in check? The ArbCom (Arbitration
Committee) who can overrule decisions made by editors and administrators.
15 people active as of a week ago.
Who keeps the ArbCom in check? A very small group of people. I don't
recall the exact number, perhaps about 20?
Who keeps that small group in check? Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.
Who keeps Jimbo in check? His conscience and spirituality. :-)
============================================================================
Now I'm going to list the various issues with Wikipedia policy that
comes to mind, so you'll hopefully get a better understanding of *why*
the editors and administrators did what they did. (Note: I haven't seen
the page nor history in question so I don't know the details of issue here.)
The editor who said 'ludicrous and ...' may not have had framed it in my
preferred manner of civility.
My own inclination would have been to assume the page creator may have
been a novice editor and thus not familiar with WP policies. This
assumption keeps in line with WP:AGF (Assume Good Faith), meaning assume
that an editor is doing something in good faith unless otherwise clearly
proven to be intentionally disruptive.
If I say WP:<word>, means you can enter that term in any Wikipedia
search box.
The page as originally created had a number of WP policy issues:
1) May have potentially fallen afoul of WP:OR (no 'original research'
allowed) -- WP is considered to be at least a tertiary source of
information. Put differently, we are only able to cite verifiable
published facts from reliable primary and supporting secondary sources.
Any original research we initiate on our own or speculation (a form of
original research, but doesn't apply to this case) falls afoul of that.
----------------
2) What would a RS (reliable source) be? A good primary source would be
the studio listing credits somewhere or as is widely accepted, a pointer
to IMDB (via an easy-to-use WP template) entry for the movie or person.
A decent secondary source might be someone who doesn't have access to
original sources but is widely considered to be reliable and
knowledgeable in this area. Could be a newspaper such as the New York
Times, for instance. (And in other cases, NYT could be a primary source.)
----------------
3) There was a request in this LOPSA thread for people to look and remark.
That's a risky situation to be in, since depending on context and how it
was requested (and with what intentions), it may or may not fall afoul
of WP:CANVAS.
For normal article editing, that's perhaps OK. For discussions regarding
WP administrative matters (e.g. defense against deletion), not such so
OK since it could potentially be construed as 'loading the deck'.
----------------
4) What's the deletion policy? Well, there are two tracks: normal
deletion policy and a speedy deletion policy.
Speedy deletion (see WP:CSD) is when an administrator is allowed to
bypass the normal deletion discussion and process to delete a page on
sight, but only if it fits one of the listed criteria for speedy deletion.
This page could have potentially fell afoul of speedy deletion policy
criterion A7 that states: "No indication of importance (individuals,
animals, organizations, web content)." (with further elaboration at WP:CSD)
----------------
5) Otherwise, the normal deletion policy normally covers discussions
that lasts at least seven days if an article is nominated for deletion.
An administrator monitors that discussion and then makes the final call
on whether to delete it or leave it for further refinement.
See WP:DELETE. It also suggests some other alternatives to working the
article into a different form that may head off deletion.
----------------
6) Issue is also partly one of WP:NOTABILITY
An uninvolved administrator would want to know: how is the list notable?
Notability means different things to different people -- remember, WP
also serves the larger audience, most of whom aren't sysadmins. :-)
----------------
7) It may also fall afoul of WP:TRIVIA and WP:LISTCRUFT. (Latter is the crux.)
Basically, from WP:LISTCRUFT, it says:
"On the other hand, topics such as List of small-bust models and
performers, List of songs that contain the laughter of children,
and List of nasal singers should be considered highly questionable
because there are no articles on those topics."
Implication is that it's more likely to stay if there's a broader and
well-fleshed out (e.g. well-supported by RS/refs) article on that
particular topic. Is there a page on sysadmins? Would a list make sense?
----------------
8) Tom Limoncelli brought up a point:
"If there is a wikipedia page that lists "known man-made objects
on the moon", why not?"
I understand where Tom's coming from, but that's a bad argument to make
from a WP editor or administrator perspective. :-) WP wasn't meant to be
a dumping ground of trivia or lists per se. (See WP:TRIVIA, WP:LISTCRUFT)
Unfortunately, with 3,246,891 articles in the English language Wikipedia
(as of today), it's not possible for roving editors or administrators to
catch all clear cases of questionable articles on their own.
I'm not saying that article listing the known man-made objects on the
moon is necessarily bad; perhaps it was well-written, is referenced by a
larger article, well supported by reliable primary and secondary
sources, and has broad community consensus with some acceptable degree
of notability?
But the bottom line is, just means even though someone else created such
a page, doesn't mean we too can indiscriminately make them. The ol' "He
did it... so I thought it was OK" defense doesn't hold much water. :-)
It comes down to: does this article contribute to human knowledge in a
meaningful and verifiable way? Does this stay reasonably within WP
policies? If not, can it be made a solid article on its own merits somehow?
Is there community consensus on keeping this page for further improvement?
If the answer is 'no' to all of the above, that's when an article goes away.
----------------
9) If the article is not referenced by another article and isn't
substantial enough to stand solely on its own, it's basically orphaned.
That's when a WP editor or administrator might request significant
improvement or if not forthcoming, start of the deletion process, unless
it qualifies for speedy deletion -- in which case, it could go away on
the spot without any waiting period or advance warning.
----------------
10) I don't normally like compiling lists on WPs because they tend to
become stale over time unless the topic is of strong enough interest
that there will always be someone faithfully tracking and updating over
the years. Such as oldest living people, space missions, sports teams, etc.
But for a smaller list in a fairly narrow topic and of interest to a
very small group of people, the risk is much bigger that it becomes stale.
If that happens, it then becomes a drag on the larger body of WP articles.
So my own preference is usually to avoid lists as a standalone article
unless it's strong enough to stand on its own and be maintained over time.
============================================================================
I'm basically retired from WP editing (by own choice, not by any
situation or administrative action), but I would like to state there are
a lot of helpful WP resources including people willing to help guide you
through a situation with a different perspective or help answer
particular questions.
A pretty good starting point is: WP:HELP since that points you at all
sorts of resources depending on your need. If you're not sure *where* to
start, there's the WP helpdesk where you can ask a question and they can
either answer it or point you at the right place.
I *DON'T* want to discourage you from editing WP since given your
experience base and knowledge, definitely would be a valuable
contributor.
I'm sure this article could be improved or merged... or just moved
somewhere else other than WP if it came to that. Doesn't LOPSA have a
wiki site? (As an alternative; not bound by WP's policies/rules there.)
I just wanted to give you a rundown of possible issues from someone not
involved with this page and has some WP editing experience, so you can
better understand where WP administrators or more experienced editors
are going with their positions on the issue.
And also, conversely, what kind of issues you'd need to fully resolve to
stand a better chance of that article staying in WP in some form.
I always thought that 'No, and here's why...' was an infinitely better
answer than 'No. End of story.', after all. :-)
Personally speaking, as a person, and not speaking as a WP editor, I
thought the idea of a list of admins credited in films is cool. It's
just a little hard to shoehorn it into something acceptable to WP in its
current form. My guess is this might be safer if hosted off-Wikipedia.
-Dan
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