Post Deleted

Perhaps my favorite article in Wikipedia, the List of homophonous phrases, was deleted from Wikipedia in mid-August. Those arguing for deletion claimed that it was original research and were, I suppose, correct in that designation. But that doesn’t make me happy to see it go.

I asked an admin to move the list into a temporary home in my userspace until I can find a better home for it. Please help me find one and I’ll redirect.

It’s the latest in several unfortunate deletions I witnessed recently. I created a humorous "undeletionist" barnstar to give to an admin for undeleting some humorous project pages in Wikipedia (which have since been redeleted, but copied first). My barnstar was also deleted.

In retaliation for this all, and in good fun, I proposed the Association of Deletionist Wikipedians for deletion. The {{delete}} tag stuck around for a week until it was deleted under suspicion that it might be a joke. True enough. On the other hand, I have similar suspicions about the subject of the article.

10 Replies to “Post Deleted”

  1. I know exactly how you feel.  I had a similar reaction to the deletion of “List of snowclones”.  I don’t have a better argument for keeping it than WP:ILIKEIT, but it was one of my favorite articles nonetheless.

    Wikipedia has too many people who spend their time looking for articles to delete, without contributing anything positive to the project.

  2. i: I don’t read Slashdot but I sure do like it’s homophonous URL. I even have an email address that is mako@atdot.cc.

    John Schmidt: I know and love Wikiversity and have even written a whole curriculum on Wikiversity.

    Josh Triplett: Unlike the people you link to, I don’t think things are hopelessly out of control, a conspiracy, or something that means we should not donate to the Foundation. The issues you describe are, in fact, mostly not in the purview of the the foundation — and I don’t think they should be mandating community processes in the English wikipedia as their role as trustees.

    More importantly, I think we should financiall support the Wikimedia Foundation in their important work.

  3. mako: I don’t see anything in those posts suggesting a conspiracy; that would suggest an organized effort. :)  I also wouldn’t say “hopelessly”, and I think the problem really does go unnoticed because Wikipedia mostly works.  I certainly use it extensively; however, problems like deletionism make me hesitant to contribute more than the occasional minor correction.  I didn’t intend to particularly endorse the “don’t donate” viewpoint, just the “deletionism needs to stop” viewpoint.  Clearly I should have clarified that.

  4. Just wanted to let you know about the Annex at Wikia <http://annex.wikia.com>, founded by Wikipedians as a home for lost WP articles.

    “The Wiki Annex is a place to transfer GFDL-licensed materials that are unwanted on other wikis for various reasons, but can still be valuable to Wikia or other free-content communities. This way the text remains searchable, is not lost in the page histories of redirects or deleted pages, and enthusiastic contributors can continue to work on them.

    The Annex community will organize the incoming articles, rename them where necessary, repair broken links and templates, and ensure that proper history and GFDL credit is in place. They can then notify the appropriate Wikia or external communities of the text that is available, or store the articles until an appropriate Wikia is created.”

  5. hi
    wikia and the other projects such as wikiversity above are a great way to answer the functions which do not fit in the encyclopedia
    the wiki-ness of wonderful things has many flavours
    the muppet wikia site is a lovely example of a wiki with a point of view and a niche but very funky function. im sure you will find a great home for your work too.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *