Wikipedia Weekly 66: Searching high and low
This week the panel discusses Google’s SearchWiki, ethical concerns for Wiki-research, fundraising update, upload limit increases, arb-com elections, the German edition shutdown and more.
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I just have the feeling that someone’s going to come along and G4 speedy delete Fuzheado’s copy of the article…
Comment by WODUP — December 4, 2008 @ 9:53 am
Regarding the decline of useful but (apparently) unencyclopedic lists:
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Most_missed_articles
Of the most popular search terms without articles, most are music-related, and I think come from external sites that try to automatically link artist names to articles. Almost all of these have never been created (often because the artist is new and/or technically non-notable, or because the title is not really a legit article title). But there are a bunch of long list titles that represent deleted content. These deleted lists, like “List of U.S. Army acronyms and expressions” and “List of advertising slogans”, were getting hundreds of hits per day, and are still getting tens of residual hits per day (from outside links?) months after deletion.
One of my favorites, deleted a while ago, was “List of snowclones”. Alas. I’ve long felt that we should have different inclusion standards for lists than for articles. Even if those types of things are ultimately unmanageable, they were the kinds of things that made people (myself included) love Wikipedia in its early years. At least we still have “List of nicknames used by George W. Bush”
Comment by Sage (User:Ragesoss) — December 4, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
The closing comments about the food names. Yes where are those lists ? I still don’t understand where the “no lists” policy came from in the first place. I now rarely hear “assume good faith”, or “be bold” mentioned. I doubt WP is descending into policy hell but I sometimes wonder if it will go full circle and we end up with … Encyclopedia Britannica. Er, maybe not actually.
Comment by DJBarney24 — December 8, 2008 @ 2:18 am
I started up a new blog about wikipedia vandalism. Tell me what you think!
http://www.wikihorror.wordpress.com
Comment by Aaron Doucett — December 8, 2008 @ 3:10 am
As a user, I think the article should not be deleted. Information is no less valid when presented in list form and it is impossible to project what sort of information you may need or want in future.
The only criteria for deciding article deletion should be “is it possible that someone might want to read this”? If you delete articles because they are too short, poorly referenced, or in list format, you are damaging your customer relationship – and for what?
Legitimate encyclopedia envy is a poor motivation for policy making.
If some small minds wish to make a “professional” wiki, so be it, but the popular content should not be destroyed.
How about a check box in the search page stating “Include only articles which meet Wikipedia’s minimum standards”
Comment by Lorne — December 9, 2008 @ 3:51 am