User:Stockwellnow

Hello Wikipedians

Consider this an open letter about how many well-meaning individuals following Wikipedia's current rules and practices take good content and trash it. I am a new editor and documenting my experience trying to improve Wikipedia on a single subject of 'open source labs'. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it sent me to OSU Open Source Lab. I knew there were other labs at other universities so I wrote an OSL disamb page, which I copied the code for below. In my opinion I did a good job - and was trying to show the breadth of the subject and hit most of the major labs at universities and list some of the company ones. Now my work has been eviscerated - by the following things happening: I do appreciate the last two - in that at least it preserves the work - and I can work on it and make it better.
 * all the examples I gave that there were not pages created for were deleted
 * all external links were deleted, thereby rendering the page useless as a core resource for the concept
 * Boston Open Source Science Laboratory has been proposed for deletion as an ad and as not notable
 * Open Source laboratory information management systems is slated for deletion because of significance
 * BYU Open Source Lab is tagged as not noteable
 * Stanford Open Source Lab has been tagged as not noteable
 * Open Source Research Lab has also been tagged the same
 * User:Stockwellnow/UniParthenope Open Source Lab was moved to my user space
 * and so has the Open Source Lab book User:Stockwellnow/Open-Source Lab (book)

For the most part the existing editors did not make the pages better or correct the things they found wrong (e.g. add external references etc). The pages were simply tagged, deleted or moved.

However, worst of all:
 * OSU Open Source Lab, which is the original page - which I didn't do anything to other than move it to its own personal page (actually someone else did that) - now has a lack of notability tag at the top!!!!

=Take away conclusions for new editors= I have no reason to believe my experience is somehow unique. Thus, the take away lesson for me is: Don't waste time creating new pages in Wikipedia unless you are willing to invest hours making them super-complete AND willing to follow and defend them for days from attacks from the entrenched editors. It should be clear this will turn off all but the most dedicated editors or those being paid to edit for a specific subject (e.g. a company).

In my opinion this is a dangerous lesson to be teaching new editors - as most will simply say forget it and never edit again - or start a flame war and then never edit again. In this particular topic- things are only marginally better than before I began editing -instead of a lot better- and I think if all the deletes are actually put into effect including killing the OSU page - Wikipedia will be clearly worse. I have read that Wikipedia is shrinking -- e.g. getting worse -- and I think this is why. I realize I am a newbie, greeny, whatever and my opinion counts for basically nothing - but I think many of you have good intentions and want to see Wikipedia become a repository for all human knowledge. With policies as they are set now that is never going to happen.

All the best, --Stockwellnow (talk) 01:42, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

=My Edited version=

Open Source Labs are labs dedicated to open source software or open source hardware. As the open source movement has increased these types of labs are increasing in number and activity.

The Open Source Lab may refer to:

Books

 * Open-Source Lab (book) - Open-Source Lab, 1st Edition: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs by Joshua Pearce, (Elsevier, 2014).

Labs (non-profit) or corporate

 * Boston Open Source Science Laboratory – a lab primarily for Biohacking
 * Open Source IT Lab - a company
 * Open Source laboratory information management systems
 * Open Source Lab (LUbunutu) - Virtual lab for LUbuntu development

University related Open-Source Labs

 * BYU Open Source Lab – makes open source civic apps
 * Marshall Open Source Lab – collects Open Source and Linux uses at Marshall University
 * NJIT Open Source Lab -  provides a Linux environment for general-purpose work at New Jersey Institute of Technology
 * OSU Open Source Lab - the first Open Source Lab - open source software developers
 * Stanford Open Source Lab – open source software developers at Stanford
 * UniParthenope Open Source Lab – open source software developers in Italy
 * Open Source Research Lab – UTEP lab  group-based violence on the Western Hemisphere

=The Current Version= The Open Source Lab may refer to:
 * Boston Open Source Science Laboratory, in Somerville, MA, United States
 * BYU Open Source Lab, Brigham Young University
 * OSU Open Source Lab, Oregon State University
 * Stanford Open Source Lab, Stanford University
 * Open Source Research Lab, University of Texas at El Paso