User talk:Thesteve/2004-2009

An experiment:

Andre Norton
Thanks for your input. I'll take a look at the books you recommended.&#8212;Rory &#9786; 13:15, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

LoPbN
Thanks for your support on the the Db-Dd VfD. But yr sig shows up blank on my screen, obviously bcz you're doing something funny with yr nick field at Preferences. You may get counted as an anon vote on VfD as a result, and i for one find it almost as annoying as sigs made up entirely of graphics chars.

I was interested to notice your apparent interest in List of songs by name, whose existence i probably should have deduced! I was curious to see if Lieder and arias showed up, and looking for "(Der) Erlk&ouml;nig" noticed a broken link List of songs by name: E. That's just the sort of problem that made me describe what i call "manual distributed indexes" as unmaintainable on LoPbN (and scrap them), tho it may not be quite so overwhelming on this seemingly shorter list. But maybe what we should be doing is finding out how many lists could use a ToC option that would automatically duplicate the index structure that page is aiming at! Keep up the good work, & tnx again. --Jerzy(t) 15:40, 2004 Oct 7 (UTC)

[Smile] --Jerzy(t) 07:26, 2004 Oct 8 (UTC)

I'm going to leave it there
You know I have to, don't you? You actually went with a Petrarchan sonnet. That's impressive. Ok, so the versification is a little...well...let's just say that Donne wouldn't have done it, and Pope would have popped to see it, but you're definitely the first to rise to the challenge. Geogre 03:34, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Logo blinking
Hi Steve. I don't find it presumptious at all that you replied to a question on my page, although I'd already replied at pt:q:Usuário Discussão:Chico. :) You might want to add the comments you left there to 634. Angela. 18:26, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

Blue Rodeo
Interesting how you assume I was already finished and wasn't intending to continue by readding the track listings to the album pages. Jump to conclusions often? Bearcat 21:06, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, so that people didn't mistake the article for "done". A stub notice, to me, doesn't mean "I'm never coming back to add anything more to this myself, so it's all in your hands now"; it just means "this article isn't done yet". YMMV, I suppose.Bearcat 21:19, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Clearly our methods are different, but when I'm working on a large group of related articles (such as albums by a single band), I find putting in quick stubs for each one and then going back to work on each stub individually easier than starting each one from scratch. (For example, if I'm doing the whole thing from scratch, I find I'm way more likely to accidentally file Nowhere to Here under Category:1993 albums because I forgot to change the category tag after cutting and pasting stuff from the previous article. For whatever reason, I don't seem to forget these things if I do the stub up front and then go back to fill in the details afterward.) Anyway, if stubs were a bad thing, Wikipedia wouldn't make it possible to do them. So whatevah. Bearcat 21:43, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing
Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 2000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:
 * Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
 * Multi-Licensing Guide
 * Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:


 * Option 1
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR
 * Option 2
 * I agree to multi-license all my contributions to any U.S. state, county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Thanks, Steve, Re: Pisew Falls and Addendum to "Schools"
That is the first article I've substantially done anything with, and figgured it was fair game since it has gone un-touched for 11 months, while there wasn't much info in it. Now that I have some positive feedback (thank you), and some constructive criticism (thank you, again), I will be able to find time to grab some of the other absent articles related to Parks I am familiar with in the region and wreak havoc with them as well. I've also got a pal of mine further South in Flin Flon, Manitoba looking at the parks in his neighbourhood.

I like your idea on schools. Are you in the States? Up here, Education is a responsibility of the individual Provincial Governments, and for the most part, you can find every Canadian School Board and District on-line already. There are Divisional as well as School web sites all over the place up here. Organization would have to fall into a set of Country|Province|Division catagorization, I would think, just to simplify navigation. As far as the argument, "Should schools be there?" I think so. I've got a small group of my students working on planing an entry for our school. There's nothing quite like a captive audience, especially if you can get them interested in what lies outside their own little "Shire".

All it will take is to get it started, and then e-mail a brief explanation and link to George Stephanson - Web Site and Publications Editor at The Manitoba Teachers' Society. Before you know it, geeky Manitoba Tech Teachers will start adding their schools to the Wikipedia. The snowball effect of a mention in "The Manitoba Teacher" newsmagazine will eventually hit every Province and Territory up here via mutual information sharing. CBC Radio has already been talking about the Wikipedia... that's how I got here.

I'll get on it over the Christmas Break while my gal is at work.

Just out of curiosity, Steve, are you in any way related to "The Hutch"? :) Be good. Weaponofmassinstruction

Steve, saying who Shanks has worked with before does qualify as information, and you removed it. Moreover, you shouldn't say the breakup was shown in the first episode, because it wasn't. It featured in the episode, but nothing is shown of the actual breakup, in terms of an event between Ashlee and Josh. When reworking English, you should remember that the person who did the original writing may have had it that way for a reason. It's important not to alter the meaning. Everyking 10:12, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is a purpose behind every word, Steve, behind why everything is phrased as it is. I have endlessly thought and thought about each sentence. I don't have any intention of writing an article on Shanks; I linked it because I thought he was notable enough for an article, not because I personally intended to write it. When people talk about the album, Shanks' experience as a producer is frequently cited. People also frequently compare Jessica's more pop-oriented music with Ashlee's rock-oriented sound&mdash;"The Rock Sister", "The Sister Who Rocks", etc, etc. It would be absurd to have an article about Autobiography that didn't mention this; it's a very important point. Everyking 19:27, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

All right, Steve, I don't feel like hearing any more insults, life is short enough as it is. Everyking 22:37, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Image Licensing
Hi. I have been currently reviewing licensing information of art images. I came across your favorite image (which I find rather impressive, too, by the way). The image description page says it is in the public domain, but the article Jules Adolphe Aime Louis Breton says he died in 1906. Although many jurisdictions protect works only up to authors life and 50 or 70 years, the Template:PD-art indicates that the tag is for works whose authors passed away more than 100 years ago. So I was thinking Template:PD-art-US is a better choice. Would you mind if I replace it? But I have to admit that I know very little about the artist and the work, and some works are released into the public domain by authors. If that is what happened, of course the current tag is appropriate. Thank you for your attention in advance, Tomos 13:16, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Steve! You vote to keep Autobiography album design, which even I thought was borderline and kinda questionable, but to delete Autobiography promotion and publicity? Where's the consistency? Everyking 13:21, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

OK, all right, Steve, I see your reasoning, even if I partially disagree with it. I would happily agree to a "criticism/reviews" subarticle, but your statement that all criticism and review info should then be removed from the parent article confuses me; I don't think anybody would support that, not even the most radical of the deletionists involved in the dispute. I'd be willing to see it trimmed back to one relatively succinct paragraph, but a summary of the information would have to remain. Everyking 16:02, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

When did you become such a deletionist, Steve? Everyking 00:59, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Lists in geostub category?
Hi Steve, I'm busy trying to tidy up the geography stubs, and was surprised to see one of your user pages (User:Thesteve/Lists) is now officially a geography stub. Any particular reason? This isn't a complaint, but it looks a bit odd in amongst the Bhutanese villages and airports in Greenland. Grutness|hello? 10:50, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

More schools on Votes for deletion
As of March 25, 2005, there are an additional (6) articles listed for deletion under the POV notion that schools are non-notable (even though this is invalid reasoning as per the Wikipedia deletion policy). Please be aware that the following schools are actively being discussed and voted upon:


 * VfD: Blake Junior High School (renominated)
 * VfD: Franklin High School
 * VfD: Lake Dow Christian Academy
 * VfD: Red Lake High School
 * VfD: The Sage School
 * VfD: Toowoomba Grammar School

In response to this cyclical ordeal, a Schoolwatch programme has been initiated in order to indentify school-related articles which may need improvement and to help foster and encourage continued organic growth. Your comments are welcome and I thank you again for your time. --GRider\talk

issues regarding school articles
In November 2003, there was a VfD debate over Sunset High School (Portland). The debate was archived under Talk:Sunset High School (Portland). What to do with the article is still being contested and has been recently re-nominated for VfD at Votes for deletion/Sunset High School (Portland).

I am writing to you because you have participated in such debates before. There still does not exist a wikipedia policy (as far as i can tell) over what to do in regards to articles about specific U.S. public school. My hope is that a real consensus can come out of the debate, and a real policy can take shape. Take part if you are so willing. Kingturtle 02:35, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Schools
Well, sir, looks like you've got me beat. What you've got there is some arguable, valid points. I still consider myself a deletionist, but I think schools are here to stay. Looks like you've got yourself a convert. :-) Linuxbeak 22:57, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

User Categorisation
You were listed on the Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Canada page as living in or being associated with Canada. As part of the User categorisation project, these lists are being replaced with user categories. If you would like to add yourself to the category that is replacing the page, please visit Category:Wikipedians somewhere undetermined in Canada for instructions.--Rmky87 03:17, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:Cc-by-sa-any
It seems you have used Template:Cc-by-sa-any on some pictures. You might want to see Templates_for_deletion --Henrygb 00:50, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
 * In fact, you may want to consider a different license apart from this apparent non-free multli-license -- I just implemented the post-May 19 stop-hand warning. Wcquidditch | Talk 22:23, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Image galleries
You have in the past commented on Image Galleries nominated for deletion. Most galleries are nominated because the nominators feels that galleries violate WP:NOT. The William-Adolphe Bouguereau gallery has been nominated for deletion (here). A proposal to modify WP:NOT is here. Please join either or both conversations and comment as you see fit. Dsmdgold 16:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Flesh Field
Thanks for creating the article on Flesh Field ^_^. I love 'em. - Impulse 360 02:19, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Orphaned fair use image (Image:Arioncover1.jpg)
Thanks for uploading Image:Arioncover1.jpg. I notice the 'image' page currently specifies that the image is unlicensed for use on Wikipedia and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful.

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that any fair use images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. feydey 15:00, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Negative Format
You need to stop correcting algorythm in this article. This is the name of a song on their Cipher Method album. The title is actually algorythm, NOT algorithm T h e St ev e  07:24, 24 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Steve, duly noted. I've added an exception for this article to my exceptions lists. Apologies for the disruption. CmdrObot 02:11, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Unspecified source for Image:4wizards.jpg
Thanks for uploading Image:4wizards.jpg. I notice the file's description page currently doesn't specify who created the content, so the copyright status is unclear. If you have not created this file yourself, then there needs to be a justification explaining why we have the right to use it on Wikipedia (see copyright tagging below). If you did not create the file yourself, then you need to specify where it was found, i.e., in most cases link to the website where it was taken from, and the terms of use for content from that page.

If the file also doesn't have a copyright tag, then one should be added. If you created/took the picture, audio, or video then the GFDL-self tag can be used to release it under the GFDL. If you believe the media meets the criteria at Fair use, use a tag such as or one of the other tags listed at Image copyright tags. See Image copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have specified their source and tagged them, too. You can find a list of files you have uploaded by following [ this link]. Unsourced and untagged images may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. MECU ≈ talk 17:25, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Image Dolmen.jpg
I have transfered Dolmen.jpg (in en.wikipedia) to Commons as http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Dolmen_near_Blarney_Castle.jpg, keeping your licensing and authoring information. I changed the name because there is already another image called Dolmen.jpg there. I hope that is allright with youTó campos 16:28, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Illuminate (band)
A tag has been placed on Illuminate (band) requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section A7 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be about a band, but it does not indicate how or why the subject is notable: that is, why an article about that subject should be included in an encyclopedia. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, articles that do not indicate the subject's importance or significance may be deleted at any time. Please see the guidelines for what is generally accepted as notable, as well as our subject-specific notability guideline for musical topics.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the article does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that a copy be emailed to you. Largo Plazo (talk) 12:37, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I enjoyed your comments, 5 years later
I am studying the history of the television episode wars, and I really enjoyed your comments from 2004:

The war continues, even today Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction) Ikip (talk) 19:14, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * WT:Deletion_policy/Archive_October_2004_to_December_2004
 * Thanks Ikip, I appreciate that :)
 * Unfortunately, I haven't really done much on Wikipedia in the last few years. I still support the idea, and use it for information, of course, but I'm no longer interested in the endless debates over what should be written here.  I am still very much an "inclusionist" though ;)    Th e S te ve   10:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It is a real shame that you have moved on. The Economist calls what is happening here, "The battle for Wikipedia's soul" against "self-appointed deletionist guardians". I hope you get a change of heart, and we see you soon. So much is at stake. Ikip (talk) 10:27, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's quite an in-depth article. Thanks for the link.  Its quite amazing to me that those little debates I used to have over what was then this small but unique web thing that I helped out at could garner that sort of attention.    Th e S te ve   10:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There are dozens of articles like this, and they are all universally negative towards our deletion policy. I think journalist realize what we always have, our exclusion policies are not only excluding articles, they are excluding editors too. I would love to see you help complete what you started a half decade ago. See: Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia. Here are sections from some more articles, there are many, many more. Ikip (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * {| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed"

!align="left" width="700"|

New York Review of Books: The Charms of Wikipedia
The Charms of Wikipedia March 20, 2008 Nicholson Baker New York Review of Books.

Still, a lot of good work—verifiable, informative, brain-leapingly strange—is being cast out of this paperless, infinitely expandable accordion folder by people who have a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion of what sort of curiosity an online encyclopedia will be able to satisfy in the years to come.

'''Anybody can "pull the trigger" on an article (as Broughton phrases it)—you just insert a double-bracketed software template. It's harder to improve something that's already written, or to write something altogether new''', especially now that so many of the World Book–sanctioned encyclopedic fruits are long plucked. There are some people on Wikipedia now who are just bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking peoples' work—even to the point of laughing at nonstandard "Engrish." They poke articles full of warnings and citation-needed notes and deletion prods till the topics go away.

In the fall of 2006, groups of editors went around getting rid of articles on webcomic artists—some of the most original and articulate people on the Net. They would tag an article as nonnotable and then crowd in to vote it down. One openly called it the "web-comic articles purge of 2006." A victim, Trev-Mun, author of a comic called Ragnarok Wisdom, wrote: "I got the impression that they enjoyed this kind of thing as a kid enjoys kicking down others' sand castles." Another artist, Howard Tayler, said: "'Notability purges' are being executed throughout Wikipedia by empire-building, wannabe tin-pot dictators masquerading as humble editors." Rob Balder, author of a webcomic called PartiallyClips, likened the organized deleters to book burners, and he said: "Your words are polite, yeah, but your actions are obscene. Every word in every valid article you've destroyed should be converted to profanity and screamed in your face."

As the deletions and ill-will spread in 2007—deletions not just of webcomics but of companies, urban places, Web sites, lists, people, categories, and ideas—all deemed to be trivial, "NN" (nonnotable), "stubby," undersourced, or otherwise unencyclopedic—Andrew Lih, one of the most thoughtful observers of Wikipedia's history, told a Canadian reporter: "The preference now is for excising, deleting, restricting information rather than letting it sit there and grow." In September 2007, Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia's panjandrum—himself an inclusionist who believes that if people want an article about every Pokemon character...

The Economist:The battle for Wikipedia's soul
The battle for Wikipedia's soul The Economist March 6th 2008:


 * Two conflicting visions are at the heart of a bitter struggle inside Wikipedia between “inclusionists”, who believe that applying strict editorial criteria will dampen contributors' enthusiasm for the project, and “deletionists” who argue that Wikipedia should be more cautious and selective about its entries...The behaviour of Wikipedia's self-appointed deletionist guardians, who excise anything that does not meet their standards, justifying their actions with a blizzard of acronyms, is now known as “wiki-lawyering”.


 * [N]ovices can quickly get lost in Wikipedia's Kafkaesque bureaucracy. According to one estimate from 2006, entries about governance and editorial policies are one of the fastest-growing areas of the site and represent around one-quarter of its content...The proliferation of rules, and the fact that select Wikipedians have learnt how to handle them to win arguments, now represents a danger...inclusionists worry that this deters people from contributing to Wikipedia, and that the welcoming environment of Wikipedia's early days is giving way to hostility and infighting.


 * There is already some evidence that the growth rate of Wikipedia's article-base is slowing. Unofficial data from October 2007 suggests that users' activity on the site is falling, when measured by the number of times an article is edited and the number of edits per month. The official figures have not been gathered and made public for almost a year, perhaps because they reveal some unpleasant truths about Wikipedia's health.

The Guardian: How I fell in love with Wikipedia
Baker, Nicholson How I fell in love with Wikipedia, The Guardian, April 10 2008 :


 * [Wikipedia was like a giant community leaf-raking project in which everyone was called a groundsman. Some brought very fancy professional metal rakes, or even back-mounted leaf-blowing systems, and some were just kids thrashing away with the sides of their feet or stuffing handfuls in the pockets of their sweatshirts, but all the leaves they brought to the pile were appreciated.


 * And the pile grew and everyone jumped up and down in it, having a wonderful time. And it grew some more, and it became the biggest leaf pile anyone had ever seen, a world wonder.


 * And then self-promoted leaf-pile guards appeared, doubters and deprecators who would look askance at your proffered handful and shake their heads, saying that your leaves were too crumpled or too slimy or too common, throwing them to the side. And that was too bad. The people who guarded the leaf pile this way were called "deletionists"...There are some people on Wikipedia now who are just bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking people's work...They poke articles full of warnings and "citation-needed" notes and deletion prods till the topics go away.


 * As the deletions and ill-will spread in 2007 - deletions ...of companies, places, websites, lists, people, categories and ideas, all deemed to be trivial, "NN" (non-notable), "stubby", undersourced, or otherwise unencyclopedic, Andrew Lih, one of the most thoughtful observers of Wikipedia's history, told a Canadian reporter: "The preference now is for excising, deleting, restricting information rather than letting it sit there and grow."


 * There is even, as of January, an article about "Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia" - it, too, survived an early attempt to purge it.


 * I have a secret hope. Someone recently proposed a Wikimorgue - a bin of broken dreams where all rejects could still be read, as long as they weren't libellous or otherwise illegal. Like other middens, it would have much to tell us over time. We could call it the Deletopedia.

The Guardian: Inside, Wikipedia is more like a sweatshop than Santa's workshop
Finkelstein, Seth Inside, Wikipedia is more like a sweatshop than Santa's workshop  The Guardian, Thursday December 6 2007:


 * The combination of feuds and relentless focus on negatives associated with Wikipedia creates an obsession by some devoted Wikipedians about the evils visited upon them...[a] toxic mix of paranoia, fear of infiltrators and a social system where status can be acquired by fighting off threats (real or imagined)...looking beyond the rosy marketing picture reveals little but bureaucracy implemented poorly - including fiefdoms, cliques and sycophancy to the charismatic leader.

Telegraph: Wikipedia: an online encyclopedia torn apart
Douglas, Ian, Wikipedia: an online encyclopedia torn apart The Telegraph, 18 October 2007
 * "The rise of the deletionists is threatening the hitherto peaceful growth of the world's most popular information source. It's on the discussion pages of articles nominated for deletion that anger creeps in. Policy documents are referred to only by abbreviations...the favourite of the deletionists WP:NOTE (notability)...The notability debate has spread across the discussions like a rash."

Andrew Lih was a well-known deletionist until recently when he became embroiled in the row over the entry for Pownce, a messaging and bookmarking website from Kevin Rose, the founder of the popular site Digg.com. The entry for Pownce, which had been written up in Business Week, was deleted as advertising until Lih resurrected it. He wrote about the row on his blog and has become a de facto spokesman for the inclusionists, and says he feels like an old hand.

"The old timers remember the early days when we used to say 'ignore all rules' and 'assume good faith', but people tend not to emphasise that now. The third or fourth generation of Wikipedians has only heard Jimmy Wales talk about the problems.

"So now, mixed in with the euphoria and positive energy it's a lot of cutting, fighting, referencing, cutting back while leaving the good stuff in. New priorities are arriving. Newer folks feel like they're wielding a machete, not planting new trees.

Washington Post:I'm Being Wiki-Whacked
Noah, Timothy I'm Being Wiki-Whacked Washington Post, February 25, 2007

"Wikipedia's notability policy resembles U.S. immigration policy before 9/11: stringent rules, spotty enforcement. To be notable, a Wikipedia topic must be "the subject of multiple non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable and independent of the subject and of each other." Although I have written or been quoted in such works, I can't say I've ever been the subject of any. And wouldn't you know, some notability cop cruised past my bio and pulled me over."

"Why does Wikipedia have a "notability" standard at all?"

"We know why other encyclopedias need to limit the topics they cover. If they're on paper, they're confined by space. If they're on the Web, they're confined by staff size. But Wikipedia commands what is, for all practical purposes, infinite space and infinite manpower. The drawback to Wikipedia's ongoing collaboration with readers is that entries are vulnerable to error, clumsy writing and sabotage. The advantage is that Wikipedia can draw on the collective interests and knowledge of its hundreds of thousands of daily visitors to cover, well, anything. To limit that scope based on notions of importance and notability seems self-defeating. If Wikipedia publishes a bio of my cleaning lady, that won't make it any harder to field experts to write and edit Wikipedia's bio of Albert Einstein. So why not let her in?"

"Wikipedia already maintains rules concerning verifiability and privacy. Why does it need separate rules governing "notability"?"

"When people go to this much trouble to maintain a distinction rendered irrelevant by technological change, the search for an explanation usually leads to Thorstein Veblen's 1899 book, "The Theory of the Leisure Class." This extended sociological essay argues that the pursuit of status based on outmoded social codes takes precedence over, and frequently undermines, the rational pursuit of wealth and, more broadly, common sense. Hierarchical distinctions among people and things remain in force not because they retain practical value, but because they have become pleasurable in themselves. Wikipedia's stubborn enforcement of its notability standard suggests that Veblen was right. We limit entry to the club not because we need to, but because we want to."

Mzoli's Meats
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, created a stub entitled Mzoli's Meats. It was one sentence: "Mzoli's Meats is a butcher shop and restaurant located in Guguletu township near Cape Town, South Africa", with a link to a blog.

It was deleted in 22 minutes in a unilateral action by Chad Horohoe, a 19-year-old Wikipedia administrator who goes by the name ^demon.

The two weeks of furious debate that followed was summarised by user Kelly Martin, who said: "The Wikipedia that Jimbo [Wales] originally created takes short stubs like the one he created and turns them into articles; stubs should only be deleted when there is no reasonable hope that they will ever cease to be stubs. Unfortunately, in the past few years Wikipedia has changed; it now takes short stubs and throws them in the trash can, and excoriates those who have the temerity to create them. This stub is being saved only because it was created by Jimbo." --Douglas, Ian, Wikipedia: an online encyclopedia torn apart The Telegraph, 18 October 2007

In September 2007, Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia's panjandrum—himself an inclusionist who believes that if people want an article about every Pokemon character, then hey, let it happen—posted a one-sentence stub about Mzoli's, a restaurant on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. It was quickly put up for deletion. Others saved it, and after a thunderstorm of vandalism (e.g., the page was replaced with "I hate Wikipedia, its a far-left propaganda instrument, some far-left gangs control it"), Mzoli's is now a model piece, spiky with press citations. There's even, as of January, an article about "Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia"—it too survived an early attempt to purge it. -- The Charms of Wikipedia March 20, 2008 Nicholson Baker New York Review of Books.

Andrew Lih Blog: Two Million English Wikipedia articles! Celebrate?
This weekend (September 2007), the English Language Wikipedia surpassed two million articles with the creation of El Hormiguero, an article about a Spanish-language television show.

Wikipedia’s volunteer culture has shifted dramatically from being rouge and revolutionary, to remaining staid and conventional, both in content and in policy.

Instead of two million articles being a time to celebrate, El Hormiguero shows the challenges Wikipedia faces. If you’ve seen my recent blog posts or my Wikimania 2007 presentation, you can probably guess what happened to our dear article. Yes, it was promptly listed on Articles for Deletion by User:Alkivar within 24 hours of creation

PC PRO: Dick Pountain observes the sometimes brave, sometimes brutal world of Web 2.0 self-censorship
PC Pro Dick Pountain For an example of the dark side running out of control, though, check out Wikipedia. The US novelist Nicholson Baker recently confessed in the New York Review of Books (NYRB) his addiction to editing Wikipedia articles..In the NYRB article Baker explains how Wikipedia continually struggles to repel vandalisation...but as a result is now ruled by bands of vigilantes who delete all new material without mercy or insight. This is such a strong claim that it needed checking, so I decided to attempt an edit myself. A couple of weeks ago I attended the annual Orwell Prize Awards Ceremony for political writing which is sponsored by The Political Quarterly, a venerable UK magazine for which I write occasional book reviews. Sure enough Wikipedia has an entry for Orwell Awards, but its link for The Political Quarterly was just a stub, so I tried to add a proper entry for the magazine.

I wrote a roughly 100-word potted history of this 75-year-old periodical, mentioning that early contributors included Leon Trotsky and Benito Mussolini. Sure enough, within five minutes I received a message to the effect that this entry has no content, is only about my friends (some friends!), lacks citations or corroboration and has been put up for "express deletion".

I was permitted an appeal, but it was disposed of in about two minutes and then the piece was gone. The executioner's online name is provided; following that up merely revealed that he runs a blog about baseball. So Baker's concerns would appear to be merited...It seems Wikipedia has completed the journey by arriving at an online equivalent of the midnight door-knock and the book bonfire...

The Atlantic: The Hive
The Atlantic: The Hive

[Jimmy Wales] seemed to take a quiet stand against Larry Sanger’s positions on openness and on his own authority:


 * Just speaking off the top of my head, I think that total deletions seldom make sense. They should be reserved primarily for pages that are just completely mistaken (typos, unlikely misspellings), or for pages that are nothing more than insults.

Wikipedia slowed growth

 * Modelling Wikipedia's growth
 * User:Dragons flight/Log analysis 9 October 2007: The most surprising result is that the activity of the Wikipedia community appears to have been declining during the last six months.

Request for Administratorship
Taking up the Mop: Identifying Future Wikipedia Administrators  What makes a successful request for administrator.

Who Contributes
Creating, destroying, and restoring value in Wikipedia

Other [researchers] have shown that 1% of Wikipedia editors contributed about half of edits. We show that 1/10th of 1% of editors contributed nearly half of the value, measured by words read.

Wikipedia should also develop policies, tools, and user interfaces to bring in newcomers, teach them community norms, and help them become effective editors.

Editors who revert do not earn PWV credit for the words that they restore, because they are not adding value, only restoring it

persistent word view (PWV) [is] the number of times any given word introduced by an edit is viewed.

From January 2003 to February 2004, the 10% of editors with the most edits contributed about 91% of the [persistent word views]. Then, until February 2006, Wikipedia slowly became more egalitarian, but around February 2006, the top 10% re-stabilized at about 86% of [persistent word views]. Growth of [persistent word views] share increases super-exponentially by edit count rank; in other words, elite editors (those who edit the most times) account for more value than they would given a power-law relationship. Figure 4 zooms in; editors with the top 0.1% of edits (about 4,200 users) have contributed over 40% of Wikipedia’s value. Collectively, the ten editors with the most [persistent word views] contributed 2.6% of all the [persistent word views].

Editors who edit many times dominate what people see when they visit Wikipedia. The top 10% of editors by number of edits contributed 86% of the [persistent word views], and top 0.1% contributed 44% – nearly half! The domination of these very top contributors is increasing over time

Of the top 10 contributors of [persistent word views], nine had made well over 10,000 edits. However, only three of these users were also in the top 50 ranked by number of edits.

Exploring the list of top editors by edit count, we notice something interesting: the list is filled with bots. They occupy the top 4 slots, 9 of the top 10, and at least 20 of the top 50. One the other hand, the list of top editors by PWV is filled with humans: only 2 bots appear in the top 50, and none in the top 10. This suggests, perhaps reassuringly, that people still matter.

The issue of who (i.e., what types of editors) contributes Wikipedia’s content is a matter of some dispute...Swartz [18] has argued that the work is more distributed. Voss [21] provided data on this question by counting number of edits: unsurprisingly, the data showed a power law distribution. Kittur et al. [13] analyzed the amount of content contributed by different classes of editors, finding that elite users (10,000 or more edits) accounted for over 50% of edits in 2002 but only 20% by mid-2006, due to increasing participation by users with less than 100 edits.

By measuring the total number of words added and deleted in found that this vandalism was repaired in a median time of 2.8 minutes.
 * Vandalism repaired

Edits begat edits
Cooperation and quality in wikipedia

We show [with] Wikipedia articles...edits beget edits. Topics of high interest or relevance are...brought to the forefront of quality.

Experience that newcomers have in any online community

 * Psychological Aspects of Cyberspace By Azy Barak
 * }

Orphaned non-free media (File:Cipher method cover.jpg)
Thanks for uploading File:Cipher method cover.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 05:04, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:Static cover.jpg)
Thanks for uploading File:Static cover.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'image' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "Image" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. BJBot (talk) 05:04, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

RantMedia to stay in Wikipedia
As you were previously involved in AfD discussions regarding RantMedia and Sean Kennedy (Author), I respectfully request your attendance to the current Articles for deletion/RantMedia. I believe there have been MANY productive responses to concerns on past AfD's, but some still don't seem to agree. If there is any way you can think of improving the article, or contributing to the current AfD, I would appreciate it. Thank you very much for your time. ₪—  Ce lt ic Wonder  ( T · C ) 18:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)  "