Trying to delete stories? He nominated them for an open discussion to be decided by an admin. But that doesn't sound nearly as malicious. There are valid criticisms about the AfD process, but most people are blaming Chris as if he just walked by and deleted the articles on his own.
I fear that this issue has become less about fixing broken Wikipedia policies that encourage people like Chris to delete articles, and more about "teaching him a lesson".
The amount of ad hominem attacks in the original story is much higher than anything I'd expect from HN. And, considering HN is self-policed in a lot of ways, I think the issue needs to be pointed out.
The AfD process is problematic, but Christopher was also problematic. He was strictly following the rules, even when it didn't make sense, and continued to do so even after other users were telling him, politely, that he was wrong.
This sort of behavior is not acceptable on Wikipedia (at least, according to everyone who comments on ridiculous AfD stories). As for teaching him a lesson: he was caught live. The harshness of the lesson was proportional to the amount of rage such behavior induce.
Hey, come on. I thought in many cases my nominations DID make sense -- most of the languages I nominated had neighborhood-of-zero information available about them on the web, and some of them were blatant advertising. Alice ML and Nemerle were more borderline than I thought, but a lot of people (less so on this site than on reddit) seem to think that I singlehandedly deleted the articles in question, when I instead just nominated them for deletion. If these languages were as important as one would be lead to believe from this whole fiasco, you'd think that the discussion on the AfDs would be more than strawmans and personal attacks. It appears to me that the biggest (constructive) complaint was of my personal threshold for citations. This is precisely the kind of defense I would have expected to receive in the AfD, but unfortunately, the root of the issue was only brought out after the deletions.
Regardless, I misunderstood Wikipedia policy and I apologize to those I have offended. I honestly didn't think a couple of deletion discussions was so grave, and I ask that those who abhor me so try to imagine what it's like to make a mistake and have it go viral.
One problem is that you kinda touched a "raw nerve" here. This isn't the first time this issue has come up, and a lot of people are very sensitive to it. There's a very strong strand of thought among some people that suggests that Wikipedia should change it's guidelines vis-a-vis software / programming langauges / etc. In fact, there has been an effort - at least once - to get a new guideline accepted. It failed, but my point is that this is a contentious subject that is still being actively debated, and where emotions are already flaring for some. Bring in the constant tension between deletionists and inclusionists, and any sort of concerted effort to start targeting tech related articles for deletion is almost bound to spark a shit-storm of controversy.
I'll allow that you might have been in the right on all of your AfD flags, under some interpretation of WP policies. But I think you were wrong to do what amounts to jabbing a stick into a hornet's nest, and then wonder why you're getting stung. You stuck a %!#@ng stick into a hornet's nest, that's why.
a lot of people... seem to think that I singlehandedly deleted the articles in question
In the case of Alice ML, it was just you and SarekOfVulcan (the admin who closed the discussion and deleted the article). Every single vote in the discussion was to keep. I'm not going to attribute false motivations to your actions as I have no idea what your actual motivation was (care to fill us in with something other than "it is consistent with WP policy"?).
As an aside, I agree that deletion was appropriate for a number of the stub articles; they had been stubs for a long time and didn't contain anything beyond "this language exists". Such articles didn't add anything to Wikipedia. Articles on languages like Alice, Nemerle and Joy might need improvement, but probably shouldn't be summarily removed.
You insulted people by saying that something they have invested time in is not "notable". Therefore they insulted you back. This shouldn't be surprising.
If I go and nominate "Ball-peen hammer" for deletion, I'm probably going to get [called] ignorant in the AfD discussion. That doesn't mean that "Ball-peen hammer" should then be deleted.
You insulted people by saying that something they have invested time in is not "notable"
I'm very sorry, but this is what they call "Taking things too personally." You can say that "Faux," my JS framework, is not notable. How is this an insult to me? You can say that I'm not notable. Again, how is this an insult to me?
"Notable" is not a synonym for "worthwhile," it's related to the word "popular." Saying that a language doesn't meet Wikipedia's guidelines is not a statement about the language's fans, users, or authors. It's a statement about a particular test you apply by searching the world's existing information storehouse for mentions of the subject.
That's true, but to someone who isn't steeped in Wikipedia-lore, saying that a language's page should be removed from Wikipedia, for whatever reason, is a statement about the language's fans, users or authors, because why would you remove a topic that's useful for a lot of people?
(Not to have the debate implied by my question here -- but that's the thought process, and I don't think it's unreasonable.)
saying that a language's page should be removed from Wikipedia, for whatever reason, is a statement about the language's fans, users or authors, because why would you remove a topic that's useful for a lot of people?
The notability guidelines, as you can grasp from the name, speak to whether something has been noted, not whether it is useful. Example: My last bike used something called a Hammerschmidt crank. It was a two-speed planetary gear device that behaved like a two chainring front crank, but had all the mechanics inside a drum.
It is very useful, was featured on many OEM bicycles, and people love them. There is no Wikipedia page for it right now, just a mention on the Crankset page.
Is the Hammerchmidt notable? If we do a search, we find reviews, the manufacturer's page, and classified ads for them. It isn't notable yet by Wikipedia's rules. If you think it ought to be notable, your issue is with the rules, not with their application.
Now, I just discussed Hammerschmidt cranks and their notability or lack of same. Nothing I said says anything about their manufacturer, distributors, users, reviewers... The damn things are useful and I admire the people who make them and sell them. But once we grasp that useful != notable, we grasp that a statement about their notability != a statement about their users or inventors.
I am not claiming otherwise, I'm just pointing out how people will react if you take such an action, since the grandparent seems rather surprised by it.
The presence of an ad hominem does not make the rest of a comment worthless.
Well, no, it isn't. Many things are notable that are not "popular", or even common. Leprosy, flesh-eating bacteria, progeria, Jeffrey Dahmer.
There's also a vicious cycle here: the existence of an article on Wikipedia may lead people to not post related articles elsewhere on the web, instead relying on the WP article. That may lead in turn to the article's subject being considered insufficiently notable.
You measure it by counting how often people write about it in certain contexts. That seem to be "related" to popularity to me, but if you don't think so, that's fine, go your own way with my blessing.
And, well, ball-peen hammers are quite notable. They probably have quite a few more practicing users than many of the languages this guy nominated. The problem with someone saying, "ball peen hammers aren't notable," is not that the creator of ball peen hammers might feel insulted. The problem is that the statement is incorrect.
Telling people that their work is not notable is not an insult. If someone said that to me, I'd probably give a wry grin, shrug my shoulders and say "Yeah, kinda sucks, huh?" Most work is not notable. It's not defensible to attack someone because they made a factual claim that your work has had negligible impact.
"The harshness of the lesson was proportional to the amount of rage such behavior induce."
Let's consider the logic of that statement by taking a different example. A young child is in a shop and is told by its parent it cannot have some candy. Young child "I want candy! I want candy!". The child becomes enraged, more and more enraged, by the behavior of the parent. Should the child now teach the parent a harsh lesson? Since the parent's behavior has induced a great deal of rage a very harsh lesson seems entirely appropriate.
The two situations are way too different: the relationship between a child and his parents implies that the parents have an authority on him. Deletionists have no authority on the content of Wikipedia. They know the policies and how to make Wikipedia work. Those policies grant them an advantage and if they misuse them, the users have little recourses. This, combined with arrogance, enrage the users.
I do not approve the harshness that we saw tonight, but it is easily understandable.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were supporting a 'rage is sufficient reason to attack people' position. My counter-example was intended to show clearly that rage can be entirely unreasonable and inappropriate and to disprove a general statement that 'rage is sufficient reason to attack people', which glorifies rage and anger over logic and reason. But we were missing each other's points I think.
Pardon my interjection, but did you really believe you'd encounter a real, rational person who actually believed "rage is sufficient reason to attack people"?
I can't imagine any rational person holding that viewpoint, and so in discussion with a rational person, I'd be very unlikely to argue against it without first verifying that they're actually making that claim.
The thing that does annoy me is that he seems to agree that the policies need to be changed, but he followed them anyway. Sure, the policies are what ultimately need to be changed, but we also need to discourage blindly following the rules without thinking critically about them.
only after there was a backlash: he did was felt right, people failed to counter, an admin deleted stuff, people bitched and moaned --> therefore, fine if the system is not yielding the right results let's change it.
Chris seems to be really decent. even if he had a lapse in judgement, he embraces pleasant discussion. i'm embarrassed by the juvenille response: the meanness most of all, but also the unwillingness to see someone else's perspective or view efforts as a collaboration rather than a fight.
if a teammate messes up, you help them, you don't shoot them down.
I think you mis-interpreted him. He actually said he believed that all the articles he submitted for deletion were deserving. He did however, say that if people really felt that he was being mis-guided, by following protocol, then, instead of leaving messages on his talk page, he would suggest people work on fixing WP notability guidelines.
When he said "fixing" I don't get the feeling _he_ thinks it's broken but rather is acknowledging other people's take (as evidence) and lead him to believe that there could be room for improvement.
To me this shows that he believes things are ok, but he would agree to any changes if the community thought changes were necessary. That's quite reasonable to me.
That's quite different from the allegation. (That he thought they were wrong but just followed the guidelines anyway. Or have I missed another quote where the allegation is true?
That's why he's actually a good candidate for being an editor. He is probably the personality type I like to call "football referee". Sticks to the rules even if he thinks they are unfair.
I think such people are indeed very necessary for the world to function (or we'd only have corruption and worse) and there's no reason to be annoyed about them.
Or to put it another way: Don't hate the player. Hate the game.
That's exactly why he's a horrible candidate for being an editor, actually.
Football referees don't have the flexibility or responsibility to alter the rules of the game. They have one and only one duty: to make their calls in accordance with the rules of football as closely as they can.
Wikipedia does not operate under football rules. The fifth pillar of Wikipedia is "Wikipedia does not have firm rules." Editors should enforce the spirit of the rule, even if the letter says otherwise. This is the diametrical opposite approach of football. Someone with a "football referee" attitude is decidedly inappropriate for the role of Wikipedia editor.
It's worth pointing out that even football referees have a good amount of discretion when making a call. They don't change the rules, but they selectively apply them.
You might be right, but I think your claim is more controversial than you imply. For the most part, I think the league would prefer the rules be applied mechanically. The one exception I can imagine is giving a player a warning about borderline instances of some infraction before calling a penalty.
You can call holding multiple places on the field every single play. If they did that, the game would be ridiculous and nobody would want to watch or play. So they exercise discretion and only apply the penalty when the holding affected the play.
I got the impression that there were two issues at hand:
1) Those who have the power to delete the articles perhaps weren't knowledgeable enough to make a judgement, or for some other reason gave too much weight to his decisions, and the AfD process didn't provide (enough time, a good environment) for reasonable discussion, and so he had more control over the process than he should have. Many seem to believe he was willfully taking advantage of that position.
2) His tone gave the impression that he wasn't taking the situation seriously. I really get the impression that people were upset about his attitude, maybe even more than his actions, but completely failed to articulate that, at least in a civilized and constructive way.
I'm not at all surprised that he was treated as if he was trolling, but I do agree that we should be better than that, and I have that much more respect for those who tried to mediate.
He nominated them for an open discussion to be decided by an admin.
And the open discussion clearly showed a consensus not to delete the articles.
The process, even if followed, is broken. This debacle is a joke.
Chris should have edited the articles, or ignored them, instead he flagged them for deletion. He positively asserted that they did not belong in wikipedia. None of the respondents to the AfD agreed with him. Yet they were deleted. Semantically, flagging them as AfD was the same as deleting them since that was the outcome in every case.
I agree that he doesn't deserve the entirety of the blame, the horrendously broken editorial process of Wikipedia does. It's so bad that it's virtually impossible to become a new contributor to wikipedia in any meaningful way without become immediately embroiled in WP's editorial shenanigans.
Excuse me, but the thing that proved him to be an idiot in my eyes is not his blind adherence to the rules (which can be discussed), but that, even after all this discussion he is soo sure of himself, i.e. "I think that ALL articles I nominated for deletion fail to meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline."
"The best way to know you have a mind is to change it"!
Sorry if the title seems sensationalist, but by nominating articles for AfD, he was, effectively, trying to get them deleted. He clearly stated his view that they didn't meet the notability guidelines and should be deleted.
I fear that this issue has become less about fixing broken Wikipedia policies that encourage people like Chris to delete articles, and more about "teaching him a lesson".
The amount of ad hominem attacks in the original story is much higher than anything I'd expect from HN. And, considering HN is self-policed in a lot of ways, I think the issue needs to be pointed out.