User:BusterD/Analogies

This page contains metaphors and analogies which I've seen (and sometimes coined) which may find reference in my writing from time to time.

Stuff I've said on Wikipedia and liked

 * Welcome to the world's largest live experiment for getting along.


 * "Minutia is important, but explaining the entire subject and giving perspective and proper weight is far more important than a listing of links from which the reader could decode the very points you're trying valiantly to make."


 * "A Wikipedia administrator is a person who has demonstrated a certain amount of trust based on their actions in real time and their transparency in page history time."


 * "...inherent bias doesn't and can't complete encyclopedic pagespace because bias represents an unbalancing force."

Stuff others have said on Wikipedia and I liked

 * One of the best edit summaries I have read...


 * How Sweet And Full Of Grace! You must have Stood Far Back When The Gravitas Was Handed Out. :-P


 * A cogent essay on the value of the rule which cannot be mentioned without invoking the rule
 * (I believe I was speaking to something similar (albeit from a different point of view) in my church analogy of what I described as a "community of trust")


 * User:Voice of All/General Bullshit Defense

Shamelessly lifted from User:Buckshot06's user page
''The key turning point was the increase in emphasis on WP:VERIFY. It unquestionably improved the quality of the encyclopedia, but it just as unquestionably changed us from a large community of online users sharing everything they know to a much smaller community of scholars willing to put in a significant amount of effort researching and documenting their use of reliable sources. That was a good thing for producing a more informative and trustworthy reference work, but it was effectively the end of "the encyclopedia everyone can edit", since most people simply can't or won't make the effort to do the kind of research required to make significant edits when every such edit requires an inline citation to a reliable published source. That combined with the exhaustion of many of the easiest topics has inevitably lead to the community shrinking.'' --User:Rusty Cashman,

How would an experienced editor handle a personal attachment to an article up for deletion?
...But let's say I had a real life reason to learn alot about Foo's. I met the inventor of Foo's on an airplane and talked with him for 4 hours. I found Foo's fascinating. I took notes. When I got to my hotel room, I turned on the television, and I saw a documentary on the historical significance of Foo's. And the magazine I picked up in the lobby had a cover feature article called "The 10 Best and worst Foo's of the 20th century". I look on wikipedia, and I see a very small stub that says "A foo is a thing. Some are small." and nothing else. I look in the history and see nothing there as far as deleted content or previous versions. I'm amazed, so I set out to make my first FA-candidate. I edit away. 3 simultaneous google searches, 2 copies of notepad open, typing away. I forget to eat supper..... type type type. I add tables, charts, diagrams and pictures. When I am done, I make some entry on the talk page and go back for one last peek at my creation.

Sonabitch! Somebody has put an AfD template on the page! So now, you ask, what would I do? hmmmm....

I would read the AfD nomination statement. I'd make sure I understood what their complaint was. They might have said said "We don't need Foo's because we already have a good article called Foos, and this article is just the sinhular form of that subject." Gosh would I blush! But I'd be glad I read the AfD nomination before I started calling this guy a troll and accuse him of unbridled deletionism.

So let's say he just says this: "This article is pure foo-cruft. Foo's are an inherantly non-notable neologism that will be soon forgotten.  Article suffers from severe recentism, and is nonencyclopedic.  Reads like press-release and I suspect it is a copyright violation.  Article consists solely of own research and has no reliable sources provided to verify the content."

Now what would I do?

Well, I'd call him a deletionist troll. No, just kidding! I would probably do this:


 * Keep (as major contributor). This article is certainly not a copyright violation, please assume good faith, user:nominator.  I am not some single purpose spam account, I am a long-standing contributor with several thousand mainspace edits.  While I appreciate your concerns, and agree that cruft and PR-material, especially if copyvio, must be eliminated, I think these concerns do not apply here.  Foo's are certainly notable.  Foo's were the feature of a documentary on ReallyImportant TV channel, and have been written about in magazines, books, and newspapers.  I provided several sources, and can provide many more. The subject of this article meets the notability guideline at Notability (foo-like things), in that they have foo-like quality a, foo-like quality b, and have foo-like quality c. (sign)

And I would then observe the debate unfold. I would probably feel very motivated to counter-comment every delete comment, and to "hurrah" every keep, but I would try not to. I would try to just let my initial comment stand on it's own, and hope that other editors would come along and agree with me. Although I would reply to any replies to my comment, and may answer any questions that people directly ask. I may also jump in woth a follow-on comment after any grossly-inacccurate comments like "I think Foo's has been speedy deleted before a couple times", or "there is a general consensus that any articles about foo's can not exist on wikipedia".

Yup, that's probably what I would do. I hope. JERRY talk contribs 04:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC) (all the above section copied unedited from talk as of this timestamp) BusterD (talk) 19:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)